Are beer halls endangered?
MELISSA EDDY When 87-year-old Hubert Frilling died quietly in his sleep a year ago, the village beer hall he owned and ran for more than 60 years, Zum Schanko, looked set to die with him.
For generations the wood-panelled rooms of Schanko — Frilling’s nickname — had served HandorfLangenberg, a village of 1,500 in northwest Germany, as a community centre and extended living room for countless birthdays, baptisms and other gatherings.
Maik Escherhaus, head of the local sports club, and some friends had an idea to save Schanko by selling shares to residents, as well as those who had grown up in the village but moved away and anyone else who was interested.
This fall, after a desperate race to raise the 200,000 euros, about $300,000, needed to buy the place, Schanko’s new owners began renovations and are taking reservations for its grand reopening in the spring.
While Schanko survived, that’s not the case for a growing number of traditional German restaurants and beer halls. The German beer hall is increasingly endangered, a victim of an aging population that has depleted villages, urbanization that has drawn young people away, more people turning to social media to swap stories and share news, and the expansion of diversity in German culture.
Between 2010 and 2016, Germany saw a 20 per cent drop in the number of traditional pubs, according to the German Hotel and Catering Association.
To try to save beer halls, the government in Bavaria passed a $35 million package of financial support aimed at helping owners of beer halls and restaurants in rural areas survive. Such funds won’t help owners in Lower Saxony, where Schanko sits.
Seeking to capitalize on that solidarity, Escherhaus and his friends turned to another German tradition: the co-operative. By September they had sold more than 1,000 shares to more than half the residents and others who felt a connection to the beer hall.
“Of course there were skeptics, those who said, ‘You’ll never get that much money,’ ” said Norbert Klauss, deacon at the Church of St. Barbara. “But people also knew immediately what was at stake.”
By April, the funding was secured, but they still needed someone to run the place.
Enter Andreas Mählmann, 61, from a town about 50 kilometres up the road. Together with his partner, Gabi Von Husen, they proposed a menu of schnitzel and sauerbraten, with special menus for Christmas.
“It’s important to understand people, to know how to approach them,” Mählmann said, with a nod to Escherhaus. “We’ll get it done.”