"My heart bleeds": tavern closes - community loses last restaurant
Created: 2022-11-02 05:04
By: Josef Ametsbichler
"What are you going to do if you don't have staff.
You don't run that anymore”: Landlady Rosi Lemke (48, right) with her mother Rosa Weigl (73) in the dining room.
© Stefan Rossmann
The dying of inns in the Ebersberg district continues: the Höherwirt closes – Frauenneuharting loses the last inn.
Frauenneuharting
– Rosi Lemke sits on the bench by the house wall in the autumn sun.
In front of her, on the regulars' table, fingers with black lacquered nails, decorated with heavy, silver-colored rings, dance around her coffee cup as she says: "My heart is bleeding." But it doesn't help.
The 48-year-old will close her Höchst host in Höhenberg near Frauenneuharting in a good month.
For the community, the dying out of inns is over.
There's none left.
Höhenwirt closes: Pandemic and staff worries plague landlady Rosi Lemke
Lemke did not take the decision lightly.
Struggled to keep her business running, even though she had to keep reducing opening hours until it was just Sundays and Mondays.
"It's not like there's nothing going on," she says.
The guests sometimes come in such droves that they can hardly keep up.
"But what are you going to do if you don't have staff.
You don't run that anymore." There are several reasons why she stops.
"The corona pandemic shook me clean." It's about the financial security that she has in her main job as a butcher's saleswoman.
"I love both jobs," says the landlady of the restaurant and butcher's shop.
In the land of cosiness: there is no room for more than three large wooden tables in the rustic guest room.
That increases cohesion.
© Stefan Rossmann
But it's about the fixed costs that eat them up and the stress, about the fact that even on days off you can't clear your head.
Lots of thinking and preparation - hours of work that nobody sees.
"At the moment I've got a skull on," she says, running both hands through her red hair.
"One day I'm looking forward to the fact that it will soon be easier, the other day my heart is bleeding.
Because I've grown fond of so many guests."
"At the Higher": 23-year history of the inn comes to an end
At the end of November, a 21-year history of the inn came to an end with the opening of the “beim Höher” inn.
Well, 23 years, if you count that the "Höher" had been served two years earlier without the office knowing about it - until the matter was discovered and the economy was temporarily closed.
"It's time-barred!" Says Rosa Weigl (73) and laughs.
On this day she is sitting next to her daughter on the inn's bench and remembers how she half tried to talk her husband Hans out of being an innkeeper.
"D'Kia hoidn eana Mei, d'Leit ned," she said to him in the cowshed.
But Hans' wish prevailed - the innkeeper was so affable that there was no day off for the first few years.
Höherwirt: An insider tip that wasn't too secret at all
The innkeeper at the Höher quickly became an insider tip that wasn't really that secret.
People drove up from Berchtesgaden and Erding for a pint or two and a homemade sausage salad or a cup of coffee and the homemade cake from the small but tasty menu.
A whole bunch of loyal regulars came from Grafing and the whole area - and the people from the Gmoa anyway.
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In 2014, Hans Weigl died unexpectedly, whom everyone just called the higher Hans.
And Rosa Weigl and Rosi Lemke continued.
"First I needed to get used to it, now I'm already missing the people," says the senior landlady.
Pensioners, bikers, boys, workers and students - all crowded into the rustic, wood-panelled room with three wooden tables, next to the crucifix the portrait of Franz Josef Strauss on the wall.
And of course in the beer garden with the six tables, where on warm days there was a state of emergency well into the night.
Rosi Lemke knows 80 percent of her customers, she estimates.
She has been the landlady since 2019.
"It's a family business," says her mother.
Herrgottswinkel with Franz Josef Strauss: landlord Hans Weigl died unexpectedly in 2014.
© Stefan Rossmann
Although, it's not all over with the higher, promises Rosi Lemke.
The regular restaurant business with fixed opening hours is over.
But: "It's still an economy," she says.
Festivals such as artist performances or the legendary Father's Day barbecue should continue.
It's already fully booked for this year, says the landlady.
Ever since word got around that she was retiring, the guests had been pounding on her.
You can find more current news from the district of Ebersberg at Merkur.de/Ebersberg.
Lemke sighs and smiles – her current state of mind in two moments.
Then she squints in the sun and takes the last sip from her coffee cup.
She gets up and goes back to the kitchen.
Baking cakes and rolling dumplings are on the agenda, because the guests will come back the next day.
A few more times.
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