"The usual and 20 percent more": The Jells on the challenges of landlords

Created: 06/30/2022, 16:00

By: Birgit Lang

Always full of ideas: the restaurateur couple Manuela and Franz Jell with their cousin Helmut Jell.

© Lang

In an interview, Franz Jell reports on the last time he was a trio in the Taufkirchen festival with his wife Manuela and his great cousin Helmut.

Taufkirchen

– 25 years of the Jell innkeeper family.

Many don't even know any other landlords at the Taufkirchen folk festival.

In these 25 years, Franz (58) and Manuela Jell (53) as well as Helmut Jell (55) have made the Taufkirchen Oktoberfest one of the most popular and best-attended in the area.

After the Volksfest 2022 it is time to say goodbye.

The Jells want to do their best again from July 8th to 17th.

Then it's tattoo.

An interview with Franz Jell.

Why are you stopping now?

Firstly, because we want to focus more on the beer garden.

And because both are simply too much work, because we wanted and still want to do everything perfectly.

A folk festival is not something that you quickly do on the side.

We plan all year round.

If I just run around there headless, I haven't organized it well.

Secondly, the staff is also a huge problem.

In the meantime, it is not only difficult to find sufficient waitresses, they only make up a third of the total package.

You also need people to set up and take down, bar waiters, kitchen staff, dishwashers.

.

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Up to 100 people.

That's quite an action.

So many people?

Yes, we were lucky because the building yard in Taufkirchen does a lot.

He's really great and of course also has a share in the success of the folk festival.

He lays the floor in the riding hall and takes care of part of the decoration there.

We have to do the rest: set up the beer sets, set up the party office, set up and install the bar and a complete gastro kitchen with a dishwashing tent and cooling.

In front of the hall we have to set up the beer garden tent with tables and benches ourselves, lay the floor and install the taverns there as well.

You had to invest a lot there, didn't you?

We also borrowed a lot because different material is needed every year.

Is there already a successor?

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“The parents interfered too often”

We didn't think about that.

The Taufkirchen folk festival is going well.

You'll find someone there.

We're not the only ones who can do it.

Even if we put our stamp on the Taufkirchner folk festival.

your stamp?

We have always backed family folk festivals when others still had disco parties.

I have four children myself and I know what it's like for families when you go to the Oktoberfest.

Today many do it like we do.

We have often been copied.

That makes us happy on the one hand, but it was also annoying at times.

We developed new concepts that soon became standard everywhere.

We started the classic car meeting 15 years ago, and we always come up with something new.

We also introduced the first dirndl and boys' evening.

And why is it the end now?

There are times when you start and there are times when you stop.

We have put our stamp on the folk festival for 25 years, what else do you want to add?

With us, people expect what they are used to and 20 percent more.

This won't get any easier.

Maybe a new one will find it easier.

You've tried quite a few things in the gastronomy scene.

Yes, about 35 years ago we started with the cinema café, then opened the Filou, which many still mourn today.

We have been running Bar Boveda since 2002.

We ran the Bräustüberl from 2007 and only the beer garden there from 2013.

We also have a farm.

It's no fun to keep doing the same thing and waiting until you're no longer wanted.

Now is the right time for us and you have to recognize that.

That's enough, we're all not getting any younger, even if it has nothing to do with age that we stop.

Maybe we'll come up with something else (grins).

What then?

Let yourself be surprised.

It's very difficult for me to stop with the folk festival, but going on, just because we've been doing it for so long and know how it's done, isn't our thing.

It was a nice time.

For now we wish our visitors a nice time at the Taufkirchen festival.