The Municipal House will take care of the Šlechta Restaurant in Prague

Prague - The municipal company Obecní dům will take care of the Šlechtova restaurant in Stromovka after its reconstruction. It will pay a rent of CZK 994,000 per year. The contract will be valid until December 31, 2038. This follows from a document approved by Prague's city council today. The council recommended that Obecní dům announce a tender for an operator. Although the company selected Vinohradský pivovar in the summer, the result of the competition is not binding for the city since the rental agreement has not yet been signed. The method of selecting the operator sparked a dispute today within the coalition of Pirates, Prague Sobě (PS), and United Forces for Prague (TOP 09 and STAN).

After the reconstruction and approval of the restaurant, it will be managed by the municipal department of asset management, which will draft the exact wording of the contract. It will then present it to the council, and once approved, the city will sign it with Obecní dům. The construction work is expected to be completed by December 31 of this year.

The council recommended that Obecní dům announce a tender for the restaurant's operator after it takes over the restaurant. Since Obecní dům is a joint-stock company, the city could only recommend the tender. "I do not expect that since we are the sole owner, the board will go against us," said Deputy Mayor Adam Scheinherr (PS).

Obecní dům selected the Vinohradský pivovar company in recent months. At that time, however, Obecní dům did not have, and still does not have, a rental agreement with the city. According to representatives of United Forces, the selection is therefore considered null, or invalid. Today's negotiations between the coalition parties escalated due to the competition. United Forces wanted the municipal property department to choose the operator in the future. "This is customary in similar cases," said Jan Wolf (KDU-ČSL), the proponent of the proposal and chairman of the cultural committee, to ČTK. The council ultimately chose a recommending stance, supported only by representatives of Pirates and PS.

The fact that the city will not independently announce a competition for the operator led the PS representatives, according to Scheinherr, to believe that Obecní dům was preparing all the documentation and has experience with gastronomy and organizing cultural events. "That is why we chose the route through Obecní dům, which guarantees that when the building is approved, the operation itself can be opened as well," Scheinherr said.

Vinohradský pivovar was selected this August. At that time, the chairman of the board of Obecní dům, Vlastimil Ježek, stated that ten companies were invited to participate in the selection of the operator and six responded to the offer. Subsequently, media reports emerged that Matěj Turek, one of the shareholders of Vinohradský pivovar, ran as a candidate for the coalition PS in Prague last year. Last week, the municipal control committee therefore adopted a resolution calling on the municipality to investigate this tender. Whether the brewery will actually operate the restaurant is still unclear.

The Šlechtova restaurant building was created in the 17th century as a Baroque summer palace. The restaurant has been here since the 19th century, most recently managed by Antonín Šlechta, under whom it operated until World War II. It was subsequently nationalized.

The object is currently a national cultural monument owned by the capital city. The rescue of the building, which had been deteriorating for a long time, began two years ago. According to its estimates, the city will pay CZK 120 million for the reconstruction.