As a young girl, she used to sit in her mother’s outdoor restaurant after school – now Jovana Damnjanović has fulfilled her dream of having her own café. On the pitch, the FC Bayern Women striker is an espresso with a lot of power. In her ‘nine fine roastery’, even she finds time for peace and quiet.
A motif is repeated in the illustrations on the wall: a woman in a bathing suit leaps from a considerable height into an oversized cup of coffee, clearly full of anticipation, which can be easily interpreted from her posture. A leap into happiness, and in between hangs the image of a cassette that might puzzle people who were born after the 90s. “Life has no rewind, enjoy every moment” is printed on the cover. All of this captures the spirit of the nine fine roastery café – and what its owner radiates. Damnjanović has jumped in headfirst at the deep end, figuratively speaking – into the hot coffee, full of enjoyment, and she’ll be damned if she rewinds anything. The Bayern striker is savouring every moment, right here and now, in her own café at Hirschgartenallee 24 in Munich's Neuhausen-Nymphenburg district.
The sun bathes everything in a light full of springtime joy: the pictures on the wall, the cosy, colourful furnishings, the treehouse-style bar, the cream-coloured football shirt hanging on a radiator. The current Champions League kit was a gift from coach Alex Straus and his backroom staff, Jovi explains. The colour matches the coffee theme perfectly, but it is the only reference to her sport. “I didn't want a football bar, but a café where everyone feels comfortable, where the neighbours come because there is good coffee and you can sit together in peace,” she says. “At home in Serbia, the phrase ‘Let's have a coffee’ means that you take time for each other.” Damnjanović has settled into a corner of her café, a steaming cup in her hand, a drawing of Belgrade hanging behind her shoulder. You immediately feel at home here.
A dream going back to childhood
She has always dreamed of running a business like this, says the 30-year-old. People were always building and dismantling in the Balkans, she recalls, and one day her mum simply opened a small café next to the workshop in her garden. “It was cool – people would meet up for a coffee, people would come and go, it was completely normal for me to be there after school. I thought it was super nice, the atmosphere, and I knew that I wanted to do something like that one day.” It all started in 2020 when she tore her cruciate ligament. She was looking for something to do, something for her mind. She’d already studied, it had to be something new – and so she began to immerse herself in coffee.
Damnjanović bought a portafilter and a home roaster, and a year later she completed various training courses on coffee, barista techniques and tastings. “I had to occupy my mind and realised that I enjoyed the subject,” she says. She started roasting beans herself and after her online shop, launched in 2024, quickly gained a large fan base, she decided to realise her dream of opening her own premise. At the end of her search, she was handed the keys to the building on Hirschgartenallee in November and opened at the beginning of January 2025. “When I stood here for the first time, I knew that this was exactly what I had dreamed of.”
Coffee with character and conscience
She did almost everything herself, with the help of family and friends – and her team-mates also lent a hand. Giulia Gwinn chose the colour for the wall over there, points out Damnjanović, and she also had help laying the sun-drenched wooden decking outside. “I sawed, chiselled, all sorts of things; we had a lot to do,” says the striker, whose secret pride and joy is the bar. She imagined it in this style, her husband had reservations, but she prevailed – and is now happy. "I generally had clear ideas about how everything should look. Everything in this café is 100 per cent Jovi."
The evening before the opening, there was a pre-opening party with the whole team, and the first official guest the next day was Lea Schüller – although, curiously, she doesn't drink coffee at all, as Jovi laughingly explains. Guests can also expect cool bowls and homemade sandwiches – it's not just coffee lovers who are catered for. Some dishes are named after team colleagues, such as the ‘Gigi Special’ after Gwinn (bread with salmon, scrambled eggs, avocado and cream cheese) or the ‘Stahlmann Bowl’ in honour of Linda Dallmann with oatmeal, berries and almonds. And when a shortage suddenly threatened some time ago, all it took was a call and the Bayern girls turned up with home-baked goods. The guests left just as little of the cheesecake as they did of the carrot cake à la FCB.
Two grinders for double the pleasure
Jovana keeps breaking off from the conversation – she is happy to help when guests express their wishes. She’s in the café two to three times a week, more than that is harder during the busy weeks of the season, and she clearly enjoys working in service herself. Every bean that is consumed here “I roasted myself”, she explains. She currently drives to Mannheim, where she completed her training, every few weeks and fills the car with freshly roasted coffee. This is not a permanent situation, she says; she is looking for a location in Munich and clean supply chains are generally important to her. “You can only get good beans if the entire production chain is right,” she says. “If the people on the farms are doing well, if they are paid fairly, you end up with high-quality coffee.” She got to know many farmers personally. Thomas from Mexico writes on the bags: “For my footballer Jovi’. Such deep relationships show her that she’s doing things the right way.
That’s because quality is the be-all and end-all for her, and everything has to be right, she says. The beans come from Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil and India. “I'm constantly trying out new things, we currently have five to six different coffees – two to three for espresso, two for filter coffee.” She wants to offer something for every taste: classic strong, Italian roasted as well as fruity with a slight acidity, which is then a lighter roast. There are also two extra grinders in the café: one for coffee that harmonises perfectly with milk, for cappuccino or flat white; the other for espresso, Americano or black coffee – roasted completely differently, with more fruit and sweetness. If she were to compare her style of play to coffee, which blend would she favour? Damnjanović laughs: “I would be a strong, flavoursome espresso, not a creative cappuccino. My style of play is hard-working, intense, with temperament, which suits a dark espresso with a lot of power.”
Munich on hold
Damnjanović is now sitting in her sunny corner again, peering out through the large window; it's warm enough to use the terrace today. She looks into the distance, memories come flooding back. In February 2013, she had already completed a trial training session at FC Bayern, back in Serbia she told her parents: “I'm going to Munich!” The move fell through, and it wasn't until four years later that she joined the German record champions via Wolfsburg and SC Sand. She used to change planes regularly in Munich, and from the top of the plane she looked out over the city and always had the feeling that she would one day live here. "I knew from the start that Munich was my city, and now I've been here for almost eight years. I'm very lucky." Why isn't there actually a veal sausage breakfast on the menu, with so many (elective) feelings of home? Jovi laughs. “I don't know, I thought it wouldn't fit – we're not the Hirschgarten.” However, the popular beer garden is only a few minutes' walk away.
She never would’ve dreamed of this 10 years ago, describes the Serbian international. “In your early 20s you don’t think that far ahead yet.” And now, what’s important to her when she looks ahead? She doesn’t take long to think: “That people like coming here. That they know they’ll always get a good coffee here. Nothing bad should ever be served here, this is my baby, my future.” She promises she’ll always put her all into it, from morning till night, even though she’s strangely not one of those people who you can hardly speak to before they’ve had their first coffee. “I don’t drink coffee because I need it, but because I like the taste.”
As we finish, the view sweeps over the walls of the nine fine roastery once again. Between the stylised coffee jumpers, a few phrases can be discovered. One picture reads that a good day starts with a coffee and ends with a wine – Jovana Damnjanović's café also covers this with opening hours from 9 am to 5 pm (closed on Mondays). The best piece of wisdom hangs opposite the counter: “How do you like your coffee? With you!” That's what it's all about here at Hirschgartenallee 24: that you can let yourself go with pleasure, that in life you should always press the forward button rather than the rewind button – and enjoy with the person sitting next to you.
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