His Majesty strolls through the tent. Anton Wenisch, 67, stops at every second beer bench for a handshake, a short “Servus”. His throne is the regulars’ table, the beer marker is the currency of his empire. The innkeeper in Straubing has made a name for itself over decades: a farm, a butcher’s shop, the four-star hotel with an inn in the middle of the city. Everything he has learned is combined in the “pleasure arena” for the fifth season. That’s the name of the Wenisch tent, which has been part of the Gäuboden folk festival for 36 years, as has the scent of roasted almonds.
“These days are the high point of our year,” says Wenisch, sitting down on a bench at the edge of the beer garden. With them it’s not like at the Wiesn, “where the landlord has the tent set up and then only hangs up a picture of the grandfather inside”. Wenisch still lends a hand himself. The whole year is divided into the time before and after the Gäuboden: signing contracts with musicians, hiring waiters, setting up, dismantling – and all over again. 5200 guests can be accommodated in the marquee. “Not enough,” complains Wenisch. “On a good Saturday we have to close the tent.” More than 10,000 meals go over the counter every day, 109 waitresses carry around 150 hectoliters of beer to the tables.
The toughest job at the Gäubodenfest: a waitress in the Wenisch marquee.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
At dusk, the fairground rides scatter their dim light across the fairground. Why is the landlord sitting so deeply relaxed in the beer garden at rush hour? 20 years ago, Anton Wenisch and his wife Waltraud managed the organization alone. In the meantime, they have also passed the responsibility for the business onto the shoulders of their three sons. Toni, the head chef or the “gastronomic bombshell”, as his father calls him. Stefan is a master butcher and Christoph is a service specialist. The daughters-in-law also help out. “With us, everything meshes like a cogwheel,” says Anton Wenisch, crossing his fingers. Is it okay when family and business are so closely linked? “Yes, and that makes us incredibly proud,” says the landlord. Almost everything that ends up on the plate comes from the Wenisch butcher shop. Outside in front of the beer garden, the ox from our own farm stews for hours – the specialty. “We can’t and don’t want to keep up with discounter prices,” says Wenisch.
“I still like this woman as much as on the first day”
His wife Waltraud runs through the beer garden, greeting familiar faces left and right. She is the landlady, and yes, also the queen of this tent. “Without her, I wouldn’t be who I am today,” says Anton Wenisch. They have been married for 31 years and met while skiing in Austria. “I still like this woman as much as I did on the first day,” he enthuses. Waltraud Wenisch is responsible for reservations and staff, and she’s the “finance minister,” as her husband calls her. During the folk festival, she lives in the hustle and bustle of tents for up to 18 hours a day and keeps an overview. “That everything works here,” she spreads her arms, “that’s a family achievement.”
And that spans generations. The gastronomy era began with Anton Wenisch senior. “We used to have very little money,” says Wenisch Junior about his childhood in Straubing. “My mother sent us to the cinema for three marks. If the ticket cost 2.50 marks, we had to give up the rest.” That was long ago.
Nevertheless, Anton Wenisch does not want to forget the devotion of his parents. He takes a deep breath. “My father came to the region as a Sudeten German refugee. In 1952 he founded a small butcher’s shop in Geiselhöring. Our hotel has existed since 1961.” In 1985, father and son were awarded the contract for the former Edenhofer tent on Gäuboden. At that time with 3000 seats. “He kept making very daring investments,” says Waltraud Wenisch today about her husband. “I kept it to myself how tight it was sometimes financially, so that he would do it anyway,” says the finance minister.
Before the turn of the millennium, he was laughed at for having integrated a wheat beer carousel into the tent wall, says Wenisch. Today it is full to the brim with visitors in dirndls and lederhosen, who are happy that the world is turning again after two years without a folk festival. “You need a lucky hand for such ideas. And a partner who stands by you.”
The Gäubodenfest will be opened in the marquee in Wenisch. Finance Minister Albert Füracker gives a speech, surrounded by traditional costumes from Straubing and the surrounding area.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
In the early evening the atmosphere in the tent is still familiar. Later it really gets cranked up.
(Photo: Sebastian Beck)
Today progenitor Wenisch senior is 96 years old. Gradually, the second generation hands over the tent to the third. This is one of the reasons why the landlord can ponder the past in such a relaxed manner: he knows that the tap is now running without him. “Gastronomy is no picnic. You have to love it or leave it,” he says. “My sons see it as a calling.” Did they have any other choice? “When I ask the question, I have to be careful not to get emotional.” He pauses, eyes glazed over. His children were always free to choose a different path. They grew up between brass band music and ox skewers. When they couldn’t walk yet, they were pulled through the tent in a cart. On their own two feet, the little ones then clattered down the rows to greet the guests. So everyone grew into the folk festival world.
“Everything in life has its time. You also have to know how old you are.” Wenisch likes to patch little bits of wisdom into the conversation. He still gets up at four-thirty and goes to the butcher’s shop, always ten minutes early. He cannot stand time pressure. “I’m someone who likes to get up. In the evening I’m useless for anything.” Son Stefan, once the best young butcher in Germany, is now the manager of the business. The father feels comfortable in his place in the second row.
“The premise is that this will remain a folk festival.”
When the Gäuboden folk festival did not take place in the last two years, he sometimes sat under the chestnut trees that line the festival grounds. “What work step is due today?” he asked himself. As authentic as he puts it, it almost no longer sounds kitschy. Up to 1.4 million people visit the second largest folk festival in Bavaria or “the Volksfest Niederbayerns”, as Wenisch calls it. He describes it as the down-to-earth little sister of the Wiesn. “The premise is that this remains a folk festival”, which means that it must remain affordable for the people and not just for one international audience on a weekend trip.
Apart from the oxen, the landlord is particularly proud of his “Toni’s Green Bowl”: with plucked salad, pea guacamole and edamame – not to be confused with Edam. “Vegetable butchery” is what it says on the menu. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” jokes Anton Wenisch, who said shortly before: “We Wenischs, we come from the butcher’s shop.” It’s also important to be innovative without wanting to reinvent yourself every day, says head chef Toni. His son is already hopping around between the beer benches and greeting the guests.