Greeks say they invented civilization. We Hungarians claim to have invented almost everything else, including matches, the ballpoint pen, vitamin C, and the personal computer. (Most Hungarians prefer to leave the hydrogen bomb off this list.)

The Greek-owned Hungarian Pastry Shop, however, is not interested in inventing anything at all. Its strength, say its owners, lies in its ability to remain unchanged over several decades.

To be fair, pastries have been less affected by Hungary’s inventive genius. Hungarian confectioneries were influenced by the work of French and Austrian pastry chiefs.

Nevertheless, when Penagiotis Binioris and his two partners, Yanni and Ted, whose last names seem to have been lost to history, bought a shop from a Hungarian couple in 1976, the three Greek men decided to keep the name: Hungarian Pastry Shop.

The new owners did make some changes, Binioris’ son, Philip Binioris, who now runs the shop, told Communiqué. Ted, an architect, redesigned the interior, while the elder Binioris, who, as a young boy, had worked in a taverna in Greece, hit on the idea to offer guests never-ending coffee refills.

Free refills may be one of the reasons why the dark and noisy café, located between 110th and 111th street on Amsterdam Avenue, has become an essential meeting and studying spot for many Columbia students.

On a typical afternoon, the shop is filled with students reading or writing their class assignments. According to urban legend, Ph.D candidates have written whole doctoral dissertations sitting on the cafe’s rickety wooden chairs.

“This is a place where you know that you are not going to be hassled, you can just feel comfortable and retreat in whatever you are doing,” Binioris said.

The shop today is much like it was thirty-five years ago. Only Yanni’s paintings, which hang on the walls, change occasionally. Binioris said that any other intervention would be an assault on the place.

“After fifty years of friendship you do not ask your friend to change.”

Even though the owners have no connection to Hungary (Binioris, for example, has never been there), and the two most popular products (croissants and baklava) would be out of place in an authentic Hungarian bakery, the place also manages to have a sense of “Hungarianness.”

For more than a decade, the shop has employed a Hungarian baker, for the sake of authenticity, and the shop’s strudel and Rigo Jancsi, a chocolate sponge cake with chocolate mousse filling, taste the same as those baked in Budapest.

With its resistance to change, the place echoes the retro flair of Hungary’s “ruin pubs,” bars set in abandoned buildings in Budapest’s historic Jewish quarter, that have become a major tourist attraction in the last decade.

The Hungarian Pastry Shop continues to hold a similar allure to some Columbia students, regardless of the fact that they may not appreciate the bustling atmosphere or the bakery case offerings.

“I think it is overpriced. It’s not worth it if you just go in there for a coffee,” said Henry Kogan, a graduate student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

He was not terribly impressed by the pastries either, but nevertheless has returned to the café several times due to social obligations.

“My colleagues like it,” he said. “You cannot avoid going there.”