Twelve years ago the lights went out in the traditional Obermühlthal inn. It had become quiet there after the tenants had changed and the Mühltal S-Bahn station had been closed in 2004. Many day trippers from the entire region like to visit the wonderfully situated restaurant with the large beer garden. The Sunday morning jazz pints were also popular in the idyll on the forest slope. However, the area has been overgrown for years now, the beer benches and the approximately 130-year-old building, which is not listed as a historic monument, are increasingly weathering. There is still a cash register in the kiosk and on the counter there are beer mugs – relics from better times. Quite a few people regret this bleak development and have long wondered what will become of the haunted house on the approximately 9540 square meter property – including Starnberg’s Mayor Patrick Janik.
The city of Starnberg has planning authority in the area, but has so far been just as clueless. Because the owner of the Würmtal-Zweckverband, which includes the communities of Gauting, Krailling, Planegg and Graefelfing, has the scepter in hand. After a bidding process five months ago, the Zweckverband and its municipal representatives decided in favor of an applicant who should be awarded the contract at the inn. The bidding process had already been initiated a year earlier via a nationwide real estate service provider from Grünwald. Nevertheless, it is still unclear who the buyer is and what the investor intends to do with the orphaned inn. “We are now on the home straight, soon everything will be in the bag,” assures the mayor of Krailling, Rudolph Haux, who is also the association’s chairman. It is only about entries in the land register and notarial matters.
Beer mugs as relics from better times – they too still stand around at the Gasthof Obermühlthal today.
(Photo: Franz Xaver Fuchs)
There is an old cash register in the kiosk. But there weren’t any customers here for a long time.
(Photo: Franz Xaver Fuchs)
The former beer garden with jazz concerts used to be a popular meeting place for day trippers.
(Photo: Franz Xaver Fuchs)
However, Haux has been saying that for months. He always points out that “some things just take longer” and that he is not yet allowed to say anything more specific about the business – not even on the question of whether the buyer of the Obermühlthal inn is a restaurateur and one can hope that the restaurant with its usable space of around 600 square meters will soon be brought back to life – which many citizens wish for. The chairman of the association now assumes that the sale will be completed in October or November. It is said that not only the purchase price, but also the proposed usage concept of the applicant should play an important role. Klaus Krüger, the managing director of the Würmtal-Zweckverband, has also asserted this so far.
The house in the chapel has also been sold
However, the non-profit cultural association “Feta Records” from Starnberg with the Munich entrepreneur Christian Biermann at the top, who also wanted to land the enchanted Gasthof Obermühlthal, is obviously out of the running. The association has also submitted an offer for the Zum Kapeller house on the Würm cycle path. This property has also been advertised by the Würmtal-Zweckverband. The old, dilapidated building with a turret used to belong to the Wittelsbach royal family and has been uninhabited for almost ten years. The house Zum Kapeller is a listed building. A buyer has now also been found for this, confirms Haux. But more is not communicated – except that it is not about the future owner of the Obermühlthal inn.
The Zum Kapeller house has also been sold in the meantime.
(Photo: Nila Thiel)
The operator of the coffee truck would like to refurbish the old mill ensemble.
(Photo: Franz Xaver Fuchs)
The portfolio of the special purpose association also includes the old mill ensemble with warehouse, former bakery building and historic pump house, located on the state road opposite the fish farm in the middle of Mühltal. In the warmer months there is a brown truck from the Starnberg roastery “Wiener’s”, which offers Viennese-style coffee and cake there and has long since become a small magnet for day-trippers and walkers. For more than three years, the owner Franz Kaiser has been trying to acquire this ensemble in the same bidding process, some of which he has rented. Born in Vienna, he wants to save the building from decay and transform it into a “museum café with a bakery close to the people”. But in this case it takes even longer until a decision is made. Exactly when is unclear. In any case, a lot of water will still flow down the Würm.