Kaffee Burger

One of the bars we went to in Berlin was Kaffee Burger... this bar was so creepy!

It hasn't been redecorated since the days of the third reich (thats actually its selling point) and it is so dark and eerie inside. It really does feel that you are going back in time!.. not helped by the fact that when we were in there a motley bunch of customers were sat sheepishly around the outskirts of the dancefloor.

i tried to translate some of the history from the website but it doesnt all make sense! it is still intersting though! :
In the twenties the bar was an infamous place called "Café Lido".
In 1935 the Burger family bought the restaurant, hence the name Kaffee Burger, the homely Fraktur lettering on the window bars, however, comes from the fifties. The spelling of "coffee" was an initiative of the locksmith. After the death of their parents Uta Burger continued the club. Until 1945 the upper floor still belonged to the burgers, a spiral staircase in place of today's ladies in the billiard room. In the basement there was a bakery.

Until the ban on dancing in the early forties was geschwoft in the cafe. Later, the upper floor was empty and was mainly used for years by the Stasi as an observation post for the protocol route hub Schönhauser Tor.

In the seventies, it evolved into a scene, the Burger Bar. The theater people of the nearby "People's Stage" were already among the regulars, which joined the eternal "young authors" Heiner Müller, Thomas Brasch, Lothar trolls and other playwrights. The writer and poet Adolf Endler, Klaus Schlesinger, Ulrich Plenzdorf and Frank-Wolf Matthies, came aswell, annd the actress and singer Catherine Thalbach Alesana. In particular, Adolf Endler and Frank-Wolf Matthies have the burger theme in their narratives.

From 1976, it was also a meeting place for political dissidents. In 1979 the numerous authorities urgently advised to undergo a thorough, lengthy, and thus in the GDR relations, reconstruction in order to drain the pool of contention. The "scene" moved - Prenzlauer ins Fengler "Lychener in the street, into the Viennese Café in the Schönhauser into" mosaic "in the alley, and other local areas.

What remained were the velvet hangings, the sheet board casings and Muschebubu-light installation to be carefully restored to this day. In the eighties, the burger was not as full as any other troublemakers DDR pub.

1999 it was taken over by Karl-Heinz Heymann, a pub landlord. Along with "Winsenz" putzigerweise located in the Winsstraße he brought the gastronomic "Knowing How", with the Ex-UPS-Marshal Uwe Schilling and the sealing jacket Bert Papenfuss. Papenfuss and Schilling were old "Slave Market" veterans who sought a new home for their smear literary and small musical ambitions. The "Slave Market" was ") since 1995 used as a public forum, founded in 1994 by the authors of journal SLAVES (from 1998" SLAVES revolt, "since 1999" OPPONENTS erlebnisgastronomischen in various institutions of the Prenzlauer Berg on tour.In 1999 they thought that a newly established shop would be better, it was worse.

After a brief rebuilding the Tanzwirtschaft Kaffee Burger opened on 10 November 1999 under the motto "Prenzlauer Berg now in the middle." The cultural program was the silly name of "bridge-salon", which was conceived as a response to the currently raging salon, and in September 2000 fell into oblivion. Shortly afterwards, the former women's rest room to the bar was opened to the public.

Tanzwirtschaft Kaffee Burger
Torstraße 60
10119 Berlin