The seamstresses Franzi and Mizzi have opened up a small shop in a suburb of Vienna. Mizzi is of the opinion, however, that her friend could have a much better life if only she'd marry Karl, the son of the landlord, who has been hot for her for quite a while now. Next store to them lives a rather elegant gentleman, whom Mizzi does not like. One day, an excited woman bursts into the studio, tears off her clothes and begs the girls to act as if they're fitting her for a dress should her husband waltz on in, too. In fact, her jealous husband Stefan does show up and is thrilled to discover that his Gerda isn't cheating on him. But Mizzi and Franzi are positive, that she's been meeting a certain elegant gentleman next door.

The greengrocer Ferdinand Strubel wants his daughter Marianne to marry the son of the brewery owner Baron von Schnackenberg. Since Strubel is an impossibly cheap bastard, the marriage is to take place on 20 May, which, coincidentally, is the same day the city is having a grand festival for him to celebrate his company's being in business for 100 years. Marianne, however, has fallen in love with Leopold, a gym teacher; and when he reads an article in the newspaper about the upcoming arrival of Haley's Comet on 19 May, he comes up with an idea how he can prevent the wedding from taking place: He tells Strubel that the world is going to come to an end when the comet shows up, so that Strubel will see the errors of his way, cancel the arranged wedding and will become a better person for it. (Sucker!).

A nostalgic story about life in and around a classic Vienna coffee house. The film is set in Imperial Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century.