Page 69 - Hotel Tunnel's 100 Years of History

From the previous descriptions regarding property number 353 and its owners, we find that the aforementioned old cellar has served as:
a storage cellar for the clothing and grocery store on the street cor- ner from 1319-1582, a wine and oil cellar from 1582-1650s, a storage cellar for the tenant of the property from 1658-1729 (1733), and a storage cellar for merchant and factory goods from 1729 (1733) to the 1860s. During the last period, it had stored various goods such as dry goods, spices, and colonial goods, sugar and syrup, oil, starch, flour and grain, as well as wine and spirits, among others. However, during O. Th. Barkman's time, the company's business operations began to decrease and thus the storage space was no longer needed. The ware- house building "Svanen" became sufficient for storing the company's trade goods. The old cellar from 1319, which had become unneces- sary for the company, was deemed suitable, especially because of its central location, to be converted into a wine and oil cellar. It was the merchant, later consul, Hans Friis, who had this idea and put it into practice. Merchant and later Vice Consul Hans Friis, who was born
in Copenhagen on May 8, 1819, moved to Malmo in 1847, became a Swedish citizen on February 13, 1849, won citizenship as a merchant on September 13 of the same year, became the owner of property number 333 (southern part), IV, in block number 31 Merkurius on the corner of Adel- and Ostra Hamngatorna, and established both freight and shipping offices as well as a wine and spirit trade in the aforemen- tioned corner cellar of the property.
On July 31, 1852, through a decision by the city council, Friis had obtained the right to "establish a so-called Cafe and to sell coffee,
tea, chocolate, lemonade, pastries, wine, and spirits in general" in properties number 218 and 219, II, in block number 45 St. Peter, on Ostergatan, despite opposition from the city's oldest residents. For several years, Friis had appointed the confectioner Rudolph Leonard de Capretz, who was born on April 11, 1831, a Calvinist, and on May 20, 1854, gained citizenship in Malmo as a "Swiss pastry baker" to manage this cafe. In 1865, Friis decided to move this cafe and res- taurant operation to the old corner cellar of the Barkman property, while simultaneously opening a liquor sales shop in the cellar on Kansligatan, utilizing his right to sell spirits that he acquired in 1852. After obtaining approval from the building committee for the plans to convert the corner cellar for this purpose, work on the interior began early in the spring of 1866 and was completed by the end of April. In order to reach the cellar's original stone floor, which over the centu- ries had been covered by a significant layer of soil and debris from stored goods, Friis had to conduct a thorough excavation of the cellar and remove thousands of wagon loads of the aforementioned filling.
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