Every once in a while, I wish we had some money. It’s usually when you encounter something so out-of-the-ordinary that you want to go see it or do it. I ain’t talking about going to Dizzyland or eating in a totally different Olive Garden in another time zone. I mean something rare and wonderful. Like this restaurant in Salzburg, Austria:

OK, so a Mozart dinner concert is pretty neat in and of itself. We love us some Mozart. The musicians and singers seem several cuts above your average house band. But maybe the most piquant detail about the joint is Wolfie himself ate there, or at least had a plate in front of him while he guzzled booze and nuzzled opera singers. Hell, Christopher Columbus ate there. The place has been in constant operation since, no fooling, 803. That is not a typo. Not 1803. Eight-hundred-and-three.

How do we know this? Because Charlemagne’s best buddy Alcuin of York mentioned St. Peter’s Stiftskeller in his notes. It’s named St. Peter’s because it’s inside the walls of St. Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg.

I’ve eaten in restaurants where it seemed like the french fries had been under a heat lamp for 1200 years before they served them to me, but I’ve never heard of a restaurant that old, still in operation, anywhere in the world.

The facility has been expanded since its inception. The hall where they try to saw all the way through the violas was added in 1903, for instance:

So, if we had ridiculous money, we jet off to Salzburg and order the most expensive thing on the menu, probably by accident because my German is very, very rusty. We’d listen to Mozart, maybe sitting in the same chair that Mozart did, although not in the same room, I’ll grant you. I’d look for lots of wine stains to be sure it was the right one. But for the life of me, I don’t know where my wife is going to get an outfit like Mina Harker in the picture there.