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One last currywurst with Emma: the snack icon stops after 50 years

2021-09-15T03:40:59.139Z


With wet eyes, Emma Spannberger picks the skin from her veal sausage and dips it in the sweet mustard on her plate. Brass music is playing in the background. After 50 years, she is sitting in front of her snack stand on Münchner Strasse in Unterhaching for the last time on this sunny morning.


With wet eyes, Emma Spannberger picks the skin from her veal sausage and dips it in the sweet mustard on her plate.

Brass music is playing in the background.

After 50 years, she is sitting in front of her snack stand on Münchner Strasse in Unterhaching for the last time on this sunny morning.

Unterhaching

- "I would still like," says 74-year-old Emma Spannberger, "but I can't anymore." After her husband became a nursing care case three years ago and she herself is weakened by an illness, her corona now has the rest given.

“It's a terrible farewell for me.” So after five decades, the Unterhachingen snack bar is going to end and retire - for many here an era is coming to an end.

Countless memories

On the day of farewell, the small snack bar is already full of regulars at eleven o'clock in the morning.

Most of the people here share countless memories of the red awning and the weathered wood of the cozy hut with "Emma", as everyone calls her.

The nostalgia is written on everyone's face and carries over to passers-by, who learn of the upcoming closure in passing.

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A dance behind the counter with regular guest Peter Stumpf. 

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Famous footballers and filmmakers come to Emma's snack bar

At the age of 15 Emma Spannberger came to Unterhaching in 1963 with her sister Maria Resch from the Passau region.

In 1971, “Emma's Imbiss” opened on Münchner Strasse.

Since then she has supplied Unterhaching with delicious sausages, roast pork, goulash, surbraten, meatballs, potato salad and countless other local delicacies.

Everyone in the regular guests group has a different “Emma's favorite dish”.

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The Spannberger snack bar is a local institution for regular guests.

Here you can meet for a chat, a good sausage or a cold beer.

It was accordingly difficult for everyone to say goodbye. 

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But the cheerful and open-hearted woman became a local icon because of much more than her food.

Especially because of her life-affirming nature and her ability to bring people together, Emma Spannberger has grown so dear to everyone.

“I had a wonderful time with my customers,” enthuses the 74-year-old.

She tells of times gone by, in which she never missed a SpVgg Unterhaching game, famous footballers and greats from the cultural industry such as filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier who stopped by her and people who came from far and wide to eat their currywurst.

Once a Swiss man came who only had francs.

She told him that he could pay the next time. “He actually came back after years and paid for his sausage,” she is still happy today.

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The “red special” sausage was already a hit in 2003.

The guests even came to Emma Spannberger from afar. 

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She would like to continue

Emma Spannberger is clearly frustrated with her own physical suffering.

She used to be the last to go to festivals, such as her annual must-attend event, the St. Anna Festival in Sauerlach.

“Back then I danced from 3 p.m. to 12 p.m.” Today she is visibly weakened - but she still cannot sit still.

On her farewell mornings, she sits down again and again, only to get up again and serve the arriving guests with white sausages and pretzels.

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At the 40th anniversary ten years ago, this photo was taken of Emma Spannberger and her husband Herbert, who is now in very poor health.

The 74-year-old now wants to take care of him and her own health more. 

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One of them is the Unterhaching doctor Paul Alberti, who has also been enjoying Emma's delicacies for 50 years.

“I came here as a high school graduate,” he recalls.

Today, as a doctor, he takes care of Emma and also of her husband.

“We're doing our best to get Emma back,” he says.

Today Emma Spannberger does not worry about her health, because she is still expecting many guests, such as Mayor Wolfgang Panzer. Everyone wants to say goodbye and stand by her on this difficult day. Emma Spannberger would like to continue forever, also because she “has so many lovely people” who always help her. "But at some point it will be the end of the day."

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-09-15

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