With our 50th print issue, we celebrate eight years of providing Zurich’s visitors with essential information. To mark the occasion, we’d like to reflect on how the city and this guide have changed over the years, so sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
Eight years is certainly a long time, but hardly an eternity, and while we first thought that very little had changed since we published our first city guide, we were forced to revise our opinion when we took a closer look. The guide, the city of Zurich and daily life in general have all evolved in the past decade. It’s hard to believe, but Instagram only came online in 2010 and now this social network and essential tool for Millennials has one billion users.
And if we look back at the first issue of Zurich In Your Pocket, its most eye-catching feature would have to be its incredibly small font. What were we thinking? It was so small, that people must have used magnifying glasses just to read our features and reviews. And where are the photos? Perhaps it’s a by-product of the Instagram age, but our readers seem to demand more and more colourful pictures on our pages than ever before and we’re happy to oblige. This is also quite evident if you take a leap back in time and check out our old website with the help of an internet archive (click here to see it!). A clumsy design, a lack of clarity and small thumbnail photos were apparently some of its main features. But technological advancements and better design have thankfully brought us to a much better place today. But hindsight is 20/20, so let’s see what we write about our current guide and website when we celebrate our 100th issue in 2027!
What were we thinking? The font of our first issue was so small, readers must have used magnifying glasses.
You might also be curious to know how Zurich has changed since 2010. Some of its main attractions got a facelift, a proper overhaul or an addition in the past eight years. Some were even built from scratch. The most striking examples would have to be the National Museum’s remarkable concrete extension (opened in 2016). The FIFA World Football Museum also became a major attraction when it opened its doors in 2016 and Switzerland’s most famous source of income finally found a home last year at the Swiss Finance Museum.
2010 was also a time when the use of credit cards was still uncommon in Zurich, especially for small amounts in bars, not to mention restaurants where cash was still king (at least according to our memory and the striking lack of credit card symbols in our first issue). That has all changed now. Much to everyone’s pleasure, paying by card or even by phone is now the standard, no matter how small the amount (with the occasional exceptions, of course).
We have to admit that over the years updating the restaurant and nightlife chapters has always been our favourite task. Frequenting restaurants and bars as part of your job not only sounds great, but it actually is and we never grow tired of it. We reviewed 68 restaurants for our first issue. All but nine of them are still in business today, some with smaller or bigger changes to their concept, but still thriving, so it appears that many restaurants enjoy longevity in Zurich. We do, however, admit that we reviewed many culinary institutions that had withstood the test of time long before we began publishing the guide. But longevity doesn’t mean that Zurich’s restaurant scene isn’t dynamic. To the contrary, new restaurants open nearly every week and almost any cuisine imaginable can be found. And the quality of restaurants is generally quite good as competition is fierce. That’s why we’re proud to call Zurich a real foodie destination today.
Frequenting restaurants and bars as part of your job not only sounds great, it actually is!
The nightlife scene is naturally more mercurial as it’s often based on the latest trends. Out of the 62 bars and clubs we wrote about in 2010, 20, or almost a third, have already made their last calls for alcohol. The latest trend of signature cocktails and craft beers has since found its way to Zurich. So eight years or 50 issues is quite a long time after all. We presume that quite a few people (us included, to be honest) didn’t expect the guide to make it longer than a year or two when we first started. Yet here we are, looking better than ever, which is also thanks to you, dear readers. For our part, we’re excited to keep sharing Zurich’s essentials with you and hope that you keep reading us in print, on the web, in our app, on Facebook, Instagram or whatever new channel the future might bring!