Fans say goodbye to Harry’s Hofbrau
The lines outside the San Jose carvery snaked outside for hours as it closed its doors after more than four decades of serving the community
Augie Argabright and Marko Ukalovic were the first people in line outside Harry’s Hofbrau at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. By the time the carvery and comfortfood institution opened its doors at 11, the line was a few hundred deep and snaked through the parking lot. Seemingly everyone wanted a chance to say goodbye to the eatery, which was closing its doors after 42 years on Saratoga Avenue.
“This place is an institution,” said Ukalovic, 43, who remembers coming to the German beer-hall style restaurant when he was in elementary school. “An icon of San Jose is closing down, so I had to come
here for the last day.”
Harry’s Hofbrau is one of a dwindling number of joints in San Jose representing a time between the Valley of Heart’s
Delight and Silicon Valley. A sign posted around the restaurant — customers filled one of them with messages of thanks written in black marker — states the reasons for the closing: The lack of a new lease, a building that’s seen better years and the expected redevelopment of the 15-acre site that includes Garden City Casino.
A plan to develop the site with a mixed-use complex including housing, offices and retail was proposed in 2016 but withdrawn a year later. The city of San Jose hasn’t approved any new development plans for the site, but that was of little comfort to diners who have been coming to Harry’s for decades.
“There is no other place in San Jose where you can find this. Not this,” said 71-yearold San Jose resident Erik Sorensen, who decorated his ballcap with a sad face and a “Goodbye, Harry’s” message.
“All the places from my life are gone.”
Even though it was lunch, he bought a turkey wing dinner — “the least expensive turkey dinner they have that’s good” — along with mashed potatoes, stuffing with gravy and a slice of blueberry pie. He actually bought two of the meals, with plans to take one home to his wife.
Harry Kramer opened the first Harry’s Hoffbrau in Redwood City in 1954, one of many such cafeteria-style eateries that opened in the era. His son, Larry Kramer, took over the business in 1968 and opened the San Jose location in 1976. Over the decades, the chain expanded and contracted but built a reputation for hearty comfort food at reasonable prices. After the San Jose location closes, the only Harry’s Hofbraus remaining will be in Redwood City and San Leandro.
Surrounded by a huge parking lot and the Garden City Casino, the Harry’s in San Jose was a place where families celebrated birthdays and anniversaries and working men stopped by for lunch and a beer. The place would be packed every year for corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day and turkey on Thanksgiving. Nobody confused it with the French Laundry, but that’s
not what its customers were looking for.
“The memories here are unbelievable, and so are the people who work here,” said Avis Erkel, who lives in South San Jose and was thrilled to get the ham hocks and lima beans one last time. She was in line with Leigh Crutchfield and James Daly, whose parents brought them here as children. Crutchfield said when she heard the news, she immediately told her brother they had to come for the last day and she was thankful her shift at Kaiser San Jose didn’t start until 3 p.m. so she could get in line early and not miss work.
Harry’s also because a popular meeting space for groups like the South Bay Writers Club and the Santa Clara County Democratic Club, which also held election debates and forums in its banquet room. The Peninsula Banjo Band entertained customers every Wednesday night for the past five years, but is now looking for a new place to twang.
“It was the perfect kind of place for the banjo band, and it made playing the ‘Beer Barrel Polka’ just a little more fun,” said band leader Chris Bracher. “It actually got so busy on Wednesdays that they started to reserve tables for groups of people who were coming to hear us perform.”
It wasn’t just the banjo band that made Harry’s so popular. After Kevin Olcese, the nephew of
owner Larry Kramer, introduced craft beer to the bar more than five years ago, a new generation that had never eaten there began showing up — keeping the joint as hopping as ever. It wasn’t long before it became a go-to spot for brewers to introduce new beers or have a “tap takeover,” knowing that they’d be reaching influencers in the South Bay’s beer community.
It was, in fact, the beer and not the turkey that brought Keeya Bushnell to Harry’s Hofbrau on Tuesday. A regular who comes by a couple times a week, she was there Monday night when the place was swamped but still decided to come back for the last day. “They have a great selection. I’m going to very much miss this place,” said Bushnell, 35, who was far from alone at the long bar in the back by midday.
For Pete Calderon, however, it’s been all about the food since he started coming to Harry’s about a quarter-century ago. He would come to dinner about every two to three months, plus Thanksgiving, but got the word Monday about the closing and was among the first in line. “It’s a landmark gone,” said Calderon, who took home two bags filled with to-go orders. “I guess I’ll have to drive to Redwood City now.”