There is a lot to discover here and even more to describe: CDs on the wall, vinyl records on the ceiling, small disco balls that send red-green points of light on a journey through the bar. The Papalapap is like a peephole into a brightly colored parallel universe that is best understood if you don’t look at what flashes the brightest. That’s why: Seven wooden mantel clocks are lined up next to each other above the counter. The hands don’t move anymore, it’s probably been that way for a long time. On one clock it’s just after three, on the other ten past twelve. Time – yes, yes, it’s that absurd sometimes – has stood still here. In the best sense.
Kate Bush’s megahit “Running Up That Hill” is playing in the background. Not because the song was flushed back into the charts and the collective consciousness through this one Netflix show. But because it fits well into the playlist shaped by the 80s, which was probably already put together when Netflix was still sending out DVDs full-time. And it will still be running in the Papalapap when Hollywood has long been shooting virtual reality films to play along with. At least that’s what one hopes.
Equally remote from our time at first glance: roughly estimated more than a hundred records that completely cover the ceiling. Individual panels are suspended by threads as if they had run out of space on the ceiling. Anyone who has ever carried a few sheets at once frantically googles the telephone number of the nearest structural engineer at this sight: From how many kilos on the ceiling does it become dangerous? Just to find out: dial tone, answering machine. Regardless of what the hands of the mantel clocks above the counter indicate, it’s late at Papalapap, after all. The bar on Arnulfstraße is only open from 9 p.m., but late: until 5 a.m. The later the evening, the more Papalapap, you could say.
Maybe ask a structural engineer again? The ceiling has to hold quite a lot of panels.
(Photo: Robert Haas/SZ)
And because the structural engineers’ offices have already closed, it’s better to have a beer to calm down: Augustiner (4.50 euros) and Franziskaner-Weissbier (4.80 euros) from the tap or Becks from the bottle (3.80 euros). There are also various bottles of schnapps hanging and standing behind the counter, and there are also long drinks. Everything an honest pub night needs. And that is exactly what the Papalapap offers its visitors. They come through the door across the hard-drinking age groups, and have been for years.
One reason for the Papalapap’s success is certainly the owner, the tirelessly friendly and lovely Erika, who takes care of the pub-goers so that they actually feel like welcome guests. But there are more reasons. Perhaps the greatest of all: In a city that is at least as inclined to the superficial as the current zeitgeist is to irony, the Papalapap is an oasis of honesty. No layers of irony, no judgmental look at the (brand) shoes. Just beer, friendliness and 80’s hits. Sometimes that’s all it takes.