The love is in every detail. Homemade cakes on cake stands tempt you to nibble at the tables, which are set with cups and plates, serviettes and all the trimmings. There are small vases with flowers everywhere. A piano takes up almost the entire stage. Welcome to the “Ab und Zu(g)” café of the evangelical parish in the Penzberg public railway station. “I still have to make coffee,” says Alexandra Link-Lichius and hurries away. At the premiere of the new afternoon meeting in January, there was not enough of everything: not enough coffee, not enough chairs, not enough tables. The organizers were simply surprised by the large crowd. In other words: the booth was full. The room also fills up at the second meeting on a Wednesday afternoon – and not just with people from Penzberg.
A new use has been established in the citizens’ station, which is rather inconspicuous from the outside.
(Photo: Harry Wolfsbauer)
Come in and feel good in the former Penzberg train station – who would have ever thought that this would come true. For decades, the train station was a functional building, and the waiting room was not exactly a homely place, if it was accessible at all. When the Deutsche Bahn no longer needed the building, the word “demolition” made the rounds. However, the old train station is also a landmark of the city. At least he always had lovers who feared and fought for his continued existence. Years passed before the view that the historic house was worth preserving became a conviction and was heard in the town hall. In 2014, the city bought back the station – for 420,000 euros. Four years earlier she could have had it for about 180,000 euros. But Penzberg let a private entrepreneur go first. The Association for the Preservation of Monuments and Penzberg’s City History made an effort to have the station building put on the list of monuments. Vain. In 2019, a group called “Penzberg 2023” was formed, which wanted to transform the old walls into a cooperatively organized citizens’ station with a brewery. These plans also came to nothing.
The turning point came at the 2022 city festival
It took a big party, a few resourceful minds and hard-working hands to get the project off the ground. Clubs and organizations in Penzberg have been looking for a meeting place for a long time. Volunteer supporter Thomas Kapfer-Arrington, now head of department in the Penzberg town hall, seized the opportunity and suggested the former waiting room for this purpose. At the city festival in June 2022, anyone who wanted to could lend a hand. Painting, plastering, carpentry and sewing were done for comparatively little money. The transformation of the colorless waiting room into a meeting place with flair cost a total of 55,000 euros. The city took over 5000 euros of it. There was 50,000 euros from the urban development subsidy of the government of Upper Bavaria. Kapfer-Arrington and his partner, Alexandra Link-Lichius, bought the furniture from a dealer in North Rhine-Westphalia. The two bought many decorative objects at flea markets. But the metamorphosis would not have been possible without the committed citizens of Penzberg.
The former waiting room is now a room with a special flair.
(Photo: Harry Wolfsbauer)
116 events have taken place since the citizens’ station was ready for occupancy. “There are weeks when every evening is fully booked,” says Kapfer-Arrington. The 48-year-old speaks of a success. The citizens’ station is a “low-threshold, centrally located offer”. The equipment has proven itself. Nevertheless, there is one or the other on the wish list. The Penzberg Monument Association has promised 400 euros. Urban development funding is ready, reports Kapfer-Arrington. Thus motivated, he plans to expand the former dispatcher area. This is to become a multifunctional room, for example for exhibitions. Users don’t have to pay anything. The only condition is that they leave the Bürgerbahnhof clean after their event.
At the 2022 city festival, citizens were able to redesign their station themselves. Alexandra Link-Lichius was one of them.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
Meanwhile, the waiting room has filled to capacity. A few words of greeting, then Johannes Meyer, the former director of the Penzberg Music School, and Klaus Weighart sit down at the piano. Within seconds, the coffeehouse atmosphere spreads. The visitors of the café “Ab und Zu(g)” start chatting. More and more guests are crowding into the waiting room, more tables and chairs have to be set up in the adjoining room. Alexandra Link-Lichius briefly finds time to take a breather. She was one of the busy people at the town festival, painting walls and more. “I thought that the Bürgerbahnhof should not only be used in the evenings,” says the 48-year-old. A dance café in the afternoon with cake and coffee, with music and people telling stories – she couldn’t let go of this idea. As a member of the Evangelical Church Council, she found a comrade-in-arms and other volunteers in Fritz Hauenstein, who used to be a member of the committee and who organized the church afternoons for many years. “I find the project inspiring,” says Claudia Pfannschmidt. “It’s great when something like this emerges from the cooperation of a society.”
The organizers could never have dreamed that the café would hit the nerve of the times. The visitors like it. The former dean of Tölz, Martin Steinbach, is having a lively conversation at a table. Actually, the 48-year-old continues, the café should have been called “Immergrün”, based on the green velvet sofa that adorns the old waiting room. But a woman from Munich who arrived in Penzberg by train and snowed in suggested the name “Ab und Zu(g)”. “That fits perfectly, doesn’t it?”
The next café “Ab und Zu(g)” will take place on Wednesday, March 22, under the motto “Music and Stories” in the Penzberg public railway station. You can hear jazz with the band “Immergrün”.