Just down the street and around the corner from the Worker's Accident Insurance Company, where Kafka worked for so many years, sits the Cafe Arco. It was a favorite of Kafka and his friends, so much so that they started calling themselves the "Arconauts." Of course, writers hanging out in such cafes is the stuff of which literary legends are made in Europe, and Kafka's legend is no exception to this rule. It is not, however, likely that he wrote much in cafes. Kafka preferred the long, quiet night of his room to the boisterous afternoon or evening at the cafe for writing.

Readings were also a part of Kafka's literary life, and he gave one such reading (of "The Judgement") at the Hotel Evropa on Wensceslas Square.