In the tavern, you don't just get food and drink. Here you meet each other, some look in and get stuck, others look for familiar things and find encounters. But what if such places in the countryside disappear? In the Bregenzerwald, Der Adler in Grossdorf shows how local tavern culture can be lived anew every Sunday: As a “Sunday inn”, which brings together not only guests but also many of the things that make up this institution tavern.

Old Thonet chairs, a wood-panelled parlour: The “Adler” in Grossdorf visually radiates its 300-year history as an inn alone, even when renovated. At the latest when the rustic herringbone floor creaks, you can feel how many times people have eaten, drunk and chatted here. Nevertheless, the magnificent inn in the Bregenzerwald stood empty in the meantime, and several attempts to refill it with food and life failed.

Back then, Irma Renner often strolled past the traditional house until she lost her heart to the vacant building. She thought: What happens if, as is so often the case, no successors are found for such restaurants in rural areas? Even though the Bregenzerwälder was not yet a restaurateur at the time — she worked in the hotel industry and later in product management and marketing — it was clear to her that such a beautiful place, which is more than the sum of the food and drinks on the menu, must not be lost. When a family of friends with her finally bought the “Adler” and sought advice from Renner on how to maintain and run it as a tavern, it quickly became apparent that they wanted to devise and try out a new usage concept for themselves. That was around ten years ago. Since then, Renner has opened a single day a week, every Sunday, with just one menu on the menu — and has been able to record this revival of tavern culture as a success story. The interest of the guests and guest chefs, who come in from near and far every week, makes it obvious what Renner knew right from the start of their Sunday inn: There is a need for such unique places that satisfy the needs of a living tavern culture between traditional and rethought passion.

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Indulge in a little, get a lot

A tavern can be many things, but at its essence it is a predictable place that radiates familiar routines of meeting and eating and drinking together as soon as you enter it. This essence of tavern culture was not lost even with Irma Renner when she decided to open the door on Sundays alone: When she is open, there is always something going on, then it is all the more obvious how pleasant such a “second living room” in a place can be. When Renner applies the principle of “less is more” with a reduced offer at strictly limited opening hours, this corresponds to a calmness that may be more good for society today: A pleasant counterpoint to the “cognitive overload” of our time, our timed calendars and an oversupply. “It really worked out that our guests get involved in this concept, that they can't choose à la carte. They are usually delighted because the atmosphere is nice and familiar and the food tastes good. And they're happy when they don't have to make a decision once a week and can rely on us,” says Renner, who is based on simple taverns where everyone really eats the same thing and drinks the same wine.

Renner also demonstrates that a tavern as such a familiar point of contact — in which what is on the table is not overwhelmed — can just as easily be a changeable place. The landlady is of the opinion that you now have to come up with more than simply opening the doors: It is the complete package that fills the living room. She wants to provide new input by inviting guest chefs who are always on board with her and, in addition to the growing team around her and her chef Jodok Dietrich, add ideas to the menu. That doesn't mean that regional things like at home can't be on the agenda — the “eagle” started with roasts from local housewives. But what is finally on the table is not written down in grease-stained cards for ages, but is rather intended to be a spontaneous response to a consideration that is made in many households on Sundays: What do we want? With the Sunday concept in particular, the “eagle” wants to reflect changing times. “It's no longer possible to simply wait until someone comes in,” Renner is convinced: It's no longer possible to show up with her spontaneously on any given day, but once it's open, you can definitely do one thing: get stuck, gossip, absorb stories — those of the table neighbors, and especially those that are served with the menu.

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Encounters and rituals

This is not about knowing how to correctly place the plates on the table. Other things are more important in “Adler”: That people exchange ideas about life, or even about art that Renner learned to appreciate through her former husband, the artist Paul Renner. The fact that a tavern always expresses the character of the landlady or innkeeper is particularly noticeable in the “Adler”: in Renner's passion for Italy, for example. She wraps the week's menus into stories, which she sends out with a newsletter: stories from Liguria when the culinary weekend trip to this region goes. The “Adler” serves around a hundred guests on a Sunday, and it is now also open Saturday evening. An apartment above the parlour is also rented out again, a bar in the big house is open, there are cows in the stable again, says the landlady. Life has long since returned to the house. Residents of Grossdorf stop by “before and after church for coffee, their drinks or beer,” she says and adds: “Sunday is, of course, a day when you normally have time. This means that guests come and celebrate the meal.” It is not uncommon for them to stay seated for several hours. How great, says Renner, and it's important that you have the opportunity to find an open inn during your free time, especially on Sundays. Get together and talk without distraction: Such a tavern is reliably there for everyone, for meetings and rituals on a village day. So if you get taverns, you also preserve these options, says Renner: “The tavern has so much potential. You can sit down at a table, get good food, experience new tastes. People talk and laugh. It is not anonymous and you take your time. That is very nice. ”

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