There was also something good about the trouble: Cornelia Nikel received an offer for a restaurant in Starnberg, which she now also runs alongside Café Lani. © Martin Becker
For months, Café Lani boss Cornelia Nikel had to deal with harassment and sabotage by some residents in Unterhaching. Now she reports how she is doing a year after the trouble.
Unterhaching – On one of the shelves next to the counter hangs a green sign that reads: "In the end, everything will be fine. And if all is not well, then it is not the end!" A quote from the Irish writer Oscar Wilde, which expresses Cornelia Nikel's state of mind relatively precisely. Exactly one year ago, some residents severely attacked the owner of the "Café Lani" on Unterhaching's town hall square with complaints plus sabotage. According to an article in the Münchner Merkur, the 42-year-old experienced a wave of solidarity. And today, one year after the turbulence? "Now it's working," says Cornelia Nikel, "even if I sometimes walk a bit on my gums."
The landlady is now taking a two-pronged approach
The fact that her working day sometimes lasts 14 hours is due to the fact that a year ago Cornelia Nikel resisted the temptation to give up her café in Unterhaching's pedestrian zone and accept a new offer from Starnberg, which was made to her in the course of all the fuss. The landlady thought about it for a moment – and is now taking a two-pronged approach: In addition to the "Café Lani" in Unterhaching, she now also runs the restaurant café "Lani 1893" in Starnberg.
Top Italian chef won
"These are ways of fate," Cornelia Nikel believes. "I'm eternally grateful for how everything turned out." For example, that she was able to win over Davide Delle Vedove, a top Italian chef, for the location in Starnberg. "He used to live in Unterhaching, he's like winning the lottery – with a super number." Or that Antonella, her right-hand man, runs the shop in Unterhaching while Cornelia Nikel drives her homemade cakes from one café to another. "The greatest gift in the world is that I have such great employees. Just the Lani family."
Speaking of Lani: The term was created by the combination of two surnames – when Cornelia Nikel opened her first café in Unterhaching in 2013, she was helped by her cousin Maximilian Lang. Lang & Nikel = Lani, was the formula. By the way, in the African language "Lani" means something like "noble", the cousin, who grew up in Namibia, reported at the time, and in Hawaii the translation is "heaven", as Cornelia Nikel later found out.
Employees also commute
Her team consists of ten people, some of whom work in both Unterhaching and Starnberg. The change of location is also carried out by some regular guests, an elderly couple from Unterhaching reports during the morning pint: "The other day we made a trip to Starnberg - we also like the 'Lani' there very much." Even the landlady's father, who emigrated to Thailand twelve years ago, will come to Bavaria in the summer to help his daughter – Thomas Nikel (77) will take over the delivery of the cakes.
In Starnberg, a helpful community has developed around "Lani 1893", Cornelia Nikel is also allowed to fire up the grill or play music without neighbours making her life hell.
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Shorter opening hours as a compromise
In Unterhaching, the waves have apparently also calmed down, the last complaint to date about the outdoor area was received by the district office in September. As a compromise, the 42-year-old has shortened the opening hours and closes at 20 p.m. (the municipality's permit goes until 22 p.m.). "It's like store opening hours, I can live with it."
Recently, at SpVgg Unterhaching's Inclusion Day, she had a near-encounter with "two of my biggest opponents". They sat in the stadium four rows behind Cornelia Nikel, who in turn was framed by the management floor of the football club – including a Hachinger Café Lani support jersey.
Nikel: "We don't want to hurt anyone"
"I think it's subsided. We don't want to hurt anyone, we just want to make our guests happy," says the landlady. Is this view also the other way around? The view falls outside, to the open space on the town hall square, where four deck chairs are now set up. "Let's see when the first one complains about it," they joke in the cheerful regulars' table. Then the nagging, in the sense of the quote mentioned at the beginning, would not be over.
