There are not many restaurants or even gastronomic temples in Karlsfeld anyway. In mid-June, the “Steirer Stub’n” in the Karlsfeld community center was also closed. The reasons for this included the health problems of the former innkeeper and the challenge of finding staff. Because during the pandemic, some employees had reoriented themselves. The municipality of Karlsfeld is currently looking for a successor tenant; the application period expired in mid-August.
“The bookings for the community center are of course going back”
The dining room in the community center has not been served for around two months. If you want to rent the ballroom or conference rooms there, you have to take care of the catering yourself, explains Marco Mühlenhoff, who is in charge of building management at Karlsfeld Town Hall. “The bookings for the community center are of course going back,” he says. Because: “Anyone who wants to celebrate a wedding is of course happy if there is a host on site and you don’t have to take care of the catering yourself.” Another financial problem: the municipality is currently lacking the rental income for the community center, which will have to be completely renovated in the coming years.
It is leased with a restaurant and rooms in the basement, a bowling alley, beer garden, large ballroom and foyer as well as two conference rooms and a tenant’s apartment. Some applications have already been received, they are now being looked at, then the candidates introduced themselves and finally the main committee decides on a tenant, says Mühlenhoff.
According to Mühlenhoff, one of the criteria is that the landlord can convince with “home-style cooking”, preferably with German-Austrian dishes like his predecessor. The experience of the applicants also counts: “You can’t first run a chip shop and then all of a sudden host a ballroom with 600 guests.” Now the municipality hopes that a new innkeeper will be found by the end of the year: “So that he can still take the Christmas business with him,” says Mühlenhoff.