QNE_p026

QC07172014

26 The Queens Courier • july 17, 2014 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com THE COURIER/ Photo by Eric Jankiewicz Brian Questa is from WIlliamsburg and plans to move to Ridgewood. A recent influx of younger people like Questa has helped Gottscheer Hall turn a profit. Influx of hipsters revives old German bar BY ERIC JANKIEWICZ Hall began to turn a profit, something that hadn’t @ericjankiewicz/ejankiewicz@queenscourier.com been seen for 15 years, according to the bar’s secretary Roland Belay. Gottscheer Hall was on its way to closing down two “The hipsters revived us,” Belay said. The German years ago. But the Ridgewood bar and grill turned a restaurant is celebrating its 90th anniversary this profit in 2012 because of younger, more affluent patrons September but up until recently the business suffered who began to appear in larger and larger groups. a loss of patrons. Belay attributes this loss to the fact People packed the Gottscheer Hall on Sunday to that the German immigrants who drank at the bar watch the World Cup final. The patrons that afternoon are getting older and dying off. The last big wave of were either older and of German descent or younger Germans to the neighborhood was during WWII when and attracted to the German appeal of the bar and grill the war displaced many Germans from the Gottschee that derives its name from a region in Europe that was region, now part of Slovenia. once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. “Every year we get fewer and fewer Germans coming “I like the history of the bar, the kitschiness. The beer here,” Belay said. “So we have to look forward and it is good and cheap,” Jonathan Deentler, 25, said as he seems like the hipsters will keep this business alive.” ate a German pretzel and sausage with sauerkraut. “I Brian Questa, 26, lives in Williamsburg but decided guess you could say I’m being a cultural tourist.” to watch the World Cup match between Germany Deentler and his friends, who all live in Bushwick, and Argentina in Gottscheer Hall. He, too, was began to come to the bar two years ago and have since attracted to the bar’s “authenticity,” something he often frequented it. Around that time, the Gottscheer thinks Williamsburg lost when it became gentrified. Questa plans on moving to Ridgewood soon because of cheaper rent and the charm of the neighborhood. He noted the irony of contributing to Ridgewood’s gentrification. “I concede the fact that because there’s more young people taking an interest in it does make it more attractive to me,” said Questa, who identifies himself as a musical composer. “Unlike places like Maspeth where it’s all families living there.” When Germany won the match, the bar erupted into cheers and German chants, with both the older Germans and the hipsters celebrating the moment. In the coming years, Belay and the other owners of the bar will have to juggle the necessity to make money with “preserving the German heritage,” as Belay put it. But he will also have to try not to make the bar “very fake,” like Questa said Williamsburg is. “People come there to live in Williamsburg but it’s full of people just there to see and live in Williamsburg,” Questa said.


QC07172014
To see the actual publication please follow the link above