Day: June 21, 2008

Müllerstraße 1
93059 Regensburg
Germany
Tel./Fax: 0941 – 8 80 80

http://www.altelinde-regensburg.de

We found this place pretty quickly when we first moved here. It’s great, in my opinion, for a drop-in shady outdoor meal or snack. Don’t take it personally if you get the crabby old lady waitress who’s seemingly always there (perhaps whence the attitude?). If you’re lucky you’ll get the middle-aged guy with the butch haircut and the earring — he’s a good sport, if a bit more jokey than I’d like initially, and outwardly kind of gruff at first, but there’s a twinkle in there. The view from the Biergarten is quite nice, and even in the winter it’s not too shabby on the inside. And Tammy and Matthias did their wedding reception there — also lovely. They have beer varieties I like, food selections I like, pretty good schnitzel, and some of the best potato salad around — all good reasons to stop in. But our luck with larger (≥ 6 persons) parties has not been good. Read Sarah’s opinion for the details.

I like Alte Linde a lot. I like it when it’s warm and breezy and you can sit outside and look at the river and the Dom. I like it for an impromtu schnitzel-and-potato-salad craving. What I don’t like is the attitude we seems to get when we try and plan ahead for a large party – which always seems to take place during soccer tournaments.

The first time I tried to snag a reservation there for about 8 people was during the 2006 World Cup and I went over there personally with a friend (to avoid language-related misunderstandings) about 3 days before we actually wanted the reservation. I was very clearly told that they were not accepting reservations for the night we wanted (the night of the Germany-England game), but to get there early and it shouldn’t be an issue. So Cliff and I went over about 3 hours prior to gametime only to see a sea of ‘Reserviert’ tent cards on a variety of tables. Maybe it was due to my language skills. Maybe he said ‘We’re not taking any more reservations for that night.’ I just know that we were less than pleased.

This most recent time, I was feeling braver and decided to reserve over the phone. A very nice man spoke slowly and clearly with me and confirmed everything that I outlined. Outside? Check. 10-14 people? Check. 8pm on the 20th? Check and check. Great! That was painless. Until we got there anyway. We saw 3.5 members of our party wandering around saying, ‘Um, there’s no reservation.’ Cliff went over to the guy with the big book and asked about the reservation under my name. And he responded with ‘Oh, you mean the one that you called about and postponed until Monday?’ Um, wie $%#¢&§@ bitte?! I reserved it under ‘Sarah’ and I think that there’s a good chance that there’s more than one of those in Regensburg, so I can understand the confusion. I just don’t get the crappy attitude. Especially, as local expert Rainer pointed out, since the confrontation wasn’t necessary: they had a table of adequate size available. It wasn’t reserved, but it worked out just fine. Why annoy the source of of their income by trying to convince us that we had cancelled our reservation if there was ample room for our party?

That potato salad isn’t going to make up for the nasty attitude forever.