Straight through the rainbow you go up to Candidplatz. The walls of the subway station there in Giesing are still colorful. But disillusionment follows at the top: gray concrete pillars, the roadway of the Middle Ring casts its shadow on the square. But recently the search at the end of the rainbow has become worthwhile again. The dance bar Roody opened in the medical center on Candidplatz in mid-January.
This house is also grey-brown, an 80s colossus made of glass and concrete, architecturally exciting but hardly comfortable. And yet: Warm light shines from the windows on the ground floor – red, orange and inviting.
There’s a lot going on inside this Friday evening. All the seats at the counter are already occupied before 8 p.m. There are men sitting there with shirt collars under their knitted sweaters. Right next to it, at a table by the window, two older women are deep in conversation.
“It’s my birthday” is written on a student’s crown. She and her friends celebrate, drinking bottled Augustiner and draft Giesinger. A light beer here costs 3.80 euros. If you interpret the price of the half as a central one-place-for-all key figure, the Roody performs exemplary in the Munich comparison.
“You don’t even dare go into many bars in this city anymore,” says Carsten Fay (39), one of the two operators of the Roody. Things should be different here, “everyone is welcome here”. Such words are often heard. Fay’s vow is credible because he and his team also run the Isarwahn kiosk on the Wittelsbacher Bridge, where unusually high one-place-for-all values can also be measured, especially in summer.
A few words about football: When you enter the Roody, you are greeted by many colors. The sofas are light green, the hanging lamps above the bar are pink. Red particularly stands out – walls, skirting boards, the counter. Even the tiles on the toilets are FC Bayern red.
In Giesing, Sechzger territory, this could quickly lead to irritation. Apart from some stickers on the men’s toilet, only the name of the bar has blue accents. “When we planned the Roody, Rudi Völler was being discussed as a national coach again,” says Maximilian Heisler (36), the second operator of the bar. “Rudi” was an obvious working title because Völler was here in Giesing until 1982 played for the Munich Lions. “Rudi” then became “Roody”. The allusion is still recognizable, “but we don’t want to be a football bar anyway,” says Heisler. They don’t want to dispute this business with the Boazn in the area.
Beer is available here for 3.80 euros.
(Photo: Leonhard Simon/Leonhard Simon)
Cheers – and then off to the dance floor.
(Photo: Leonhard Simon/Leonhard Simon)
If you don’t like dancing, you can also retreat to a cozy chat.
(Photo: Leonhard Simon/Leonhard Simon)
And then there is also the “dance” in Tanzbar. The dance floor at the back of the Roody is empty, only one playlist is playing today. At 9 p.m. sharp, the indie hit “A-Punk” by Vampire Weekend will be heard. A nice coincidence: the cover of the band’s debut album of the same name is adorned with a chandelier just like the one that glitters above the dance floor here at Roody.
Musically, the Roody team doesn’t want to exclude anyone; they are “pain-free when it comes to genres,” says Heisler. In the future there will be live music every Thursday evening. This year they also want to offer a dance event on Good Friday, while adhering to the legally required breaks. The queer musician Bi Män wants to play her melodic techno that evening.
“The Candidplatz is of course a challenge; it is, above all, car-friendly,” says Carsten Fay. But the operators chose this challenge specifically. “A neighborhood pub for everyone has been missing here so far.” On this Friday evening you could see that this calculation was working. It has become colorful at the end of the rainbow.
RoodyCandidplatz 9, 81543 Munich, opening hours: Thursday from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., Friday and Saturday until 2 a.m.