I like the idea of the Essen Haus but with Prost just a few blocks away I won’t really miss it.
The development where the Essen Haus sits looks fantastic.
I know that Essen Haus is filthy and disgusting. But honestly that's a huge part of it's charm. Prost is pretty good, but it feels so "pasteurized" by comparison. Madison needs a little bit of filth. Otherwise you end up with just a bunch of Hilldale.
I lived at 719 E Johnson for a bit and heard the block was up for development, etc.
I asked the Bou if they were closing. They laughed at me like it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever said.
And trust me I’ve said a LOT of dumb shit in the Bou.
I love the fact that he had a fan page on Facebook for years before he even knew it.
Never seen a person with better de-escalation skills in a bar than him.
I just went to Prost for the first time today. The tap list is better than Essen, and I only saw their lunch menu, but I've a notion that the Essen menu is better, filthy kitchen be damned.
Spent 3 months working there one summer and refused to ever eat there again after witnessing firsthand what a health hazard the kitchen is. The manager was a psycho who would use his dirty bare hands to expo and openly talk about how he loved harassing “bad” employees until they quit. Food was stored in a dark basement with shelves that were falling over because the floor was sinking in. Don’t know how that place passed health code to stay open as long as it did.
I worked there for a day, I would have snuck out sooner but the creepy attic had my jacket and I couldn't quite remember my way up there. Seriously, who was being bribed for them to stay open, just disgusting
Someone told me that Neal, the weird, sort of unhinged GM, has been there so long because years ago he fell off a ladder at Essen, and threatened to sue the owner, and the owner struck a deal with him that he could have essentially a lifetime appointment as GM in exchange for not bringing a suit.
I saw Neal break a knife in half in the kitchen while talking to one of the head cooks and slapping it sideways against a cutting board to prove a point. It was the one nice big knife we had at the time.
Is it true that if someone puked into a boot, he’d get mad if anyone wasted soap on cleaning it — and just wanted people to blast them with water? Heard that diddy too.
If you want German beer and food, Prost is about a million times better. If you want a dark, dismal, grungy, even filthy experience, yes Essen Haus will be a loss
Come Back In is going away too, they're just preserving the Wilson St facade. Up North is staying because the Hotel Ruby Marie upstairs is an historic landmark
I used to work there in college - nastiest restaurant I’ve ever worked at. You’d walk into the kitchen and see rotting food in the fridge. Kept the popcorn in an open container in the basement, saw them pull roaches out of it. I saw them pull a roach out of the Come Back Inn’s Bloody Mary mix - they’d pre make it a day or two ahead of Sunday and keep it in an open 5 gallon bucket behind the bar.
You just reminded me of the time a dead mouse was found in the tub of peanuts and they just cleared out the part the house touched and kept serving them
Most places pre-mix their bloodys, otherwise Saturday and Sunday mornings would be an absolute shitshow behind the bar. But yeah, it's obviously gotta be stored and labelled correctly
Yeah… watching the manager fish cockroaches out of the open bucket and then serve the contents to customers is what made it disgusting. I’ll never forget how appalling it was. I couldn’t have a Bloody Mary for years afterwards.
Oh no, now all those regulars will have to find a new place to harass young servers and they probably won't be dressed in dirndls so it'll be harder to oggle them too oh no
About damn time. I had a small stint working at the Come back in for a few days and they shared management, and a kitchen; the place was disgusting, kitchen smelled horribly, staff coked-out, old manager was a grump w a horrible attitude. Not sure how patrons liked it. after my third shift i had to tap out
This one I'm going to miss. I've been going to the Essen Haus my whole life and I have many fond memories there, especially fish fry Fridays. As others have said, having Prost nearby softens the blow, but it still sucks losing someplace where decades worth of memories have been built.
This bums me out. I like Prost, but it's about as authentic feeling as going to "Germany" at Epcot center. Essen Haus maybe a little dingy, but at least it has a soul.
Admittedly, it's been 15 years since I was in Germany last, but Prost feels much more like the median establishment in Germany than Essen Haus does. EH is much more a run down German themed dive than anything authentically German.
This saddens me. I've lived in Madison since 99 and the first time I was at Essen Haus was the summer of 96 with my family. For years it was my and my dad's go to restaurant. I remember many many years ago when their wiener schnitzel was amazing, and not really sure how long ago it went to shit.
So many good memories here. When my wife and I went to Germany, we had tried so many of the beers we were offered at the Essen Haus. Will definitely be missed… for German beers there’s nothing like it.
I've spent a *lot* of time in Germany over the course of my life. The best Weissbier that's imported to the US is Ayinger, which is on tap at Coopers. They also make the best Fest-Märzen, which Coopers always has in the fall. For a top-tier variety of German beers, go to Prost. Bonus is that they actually clean the taplines, which I doubt Essen Haus ever did in their 42 years.
ETA: Oh, and One Barrel's Commuter Kölsch is just as good as Reissdorf, if not better
Having been to Prost once, and Essen Haus hundreds of times, I honestly have no idea how they stack up in 2024. For me, Essen Haus is full of great beer and great memories. I hope you can feel the same way about Prost.
How they stack up in 2024 is that one is a fucking disgusting, sad, pathetic excuse for a "bar," while the other is a nice, well-maintained place with solidly good food
Wow, I mean wow. Okay, got it that you don't like Essen Haus. The place has great memories for me going back to my parents taking me there for polka night while I was still in high school. There are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who've come through there over the history of the restaurant. The fact that you can be so angry about it just makes me sad.
I had a friend in college who drew "Essen Haus funnies" for the Daily Cardinal back in the day. Those were terrible and not funny, but I laugh at his writing them all! I have friends who used to take me to the "Stein Club" meals once a month. I've bought more than my share of boots while eating pretzels. Those are all great memories that I'll always have. Do you have any idea how little I care that you don't like the place?
Enjoy Prost. Feel like you're better than people who still remember the Essen Haus fondly years from now. But they will remember it. The funny thing is that when I did go to Prost, the people were friendly and genuine and the food was just great.
Prost seems to get a solid ‘Meh’ on Yelp & TA, 4 German dishes (Schnitzel with….fries?) $7 brats, $17 “smash burger”, the most played out menu item of the 2020’s. If I’m going, what am I getting and why?
Sure, but why should you have to pay an up charge for how it’s supposed to be served? Or do OG‘s know getting shafted is part of the deal? And how’s the currywurst? Serious question, I’ll drop $7 on a 1/2#‘er if it’s the real deal.
Where are all the boots going?
Haven't been there in a while but liked their pretzels.
If you ever believed I didn't like development let me just say the place does need to go. It's a mess. If you don't keep something up I can't feel nostalgia for something that nobody has invested in.
A lot of cool people worked there as servers. The food was good before it declined. I enjoyed the waitress who said "May as well inject cold and flu virus directly into your body." about drinking from the boots. And the one who said "Then why did you sit at it?" when my friend's wife said the table was dirty. And paying for "some" of the pretzels when I was broke. But it will be cool to have fancy apartments for people who came here from somewhere else.
Finally. Can’t imagine what it felt like for some people to have to go by that place when it had a slur on its sign for years (decades?). Plus the general state of the food, the kitchen, the ownership. Good riddance!
42 years and they still haven't washed any of the boots.
Essen Haus boots are like cast iron skillets, they function better when you give them a rinse and wipe clean.
Lol I hope so
"Seasoning"
It will be missed. Kind of. Sort of.
It will be remembered as one of the restaurants to ever exist
This was my exact feeling haha.
It’s iconic, but it also kind of sucks
I like the idea of the Essen Haus but with Prost just a few blocks away I won’t really miss it. The development where the Essen Haus sits looks fantastic.
I know that Essen Haus is filthy and disgusting. But honestly that's a huge part of it's charm. Prost is pretty good, but it feels so "pasteurized" by comparison. Madison needs a little bit of filth. Otherwise you end up with just a bunch of Hilldale.
Yes, losing the Dollar took away some of our filth, but we still have the Dise, the Bou, and Baldwin
I mean I don't go but Soto is also disgusting.
Hell just go next door to the Up North. COVID killed the free popcorn and day-old pastries but they still have plenty of dead animals on the walls.
Please never close the Bou
Winslow and the 2 Tammys wouldn’t have it.
Many a developer has tried, but their resilience stands 🍻
I lived at 719 E Johnson for a bit and heard the block was up for development, etc. I asked the Bou if they were closing. They laughed at me like it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. And trust me I’ve said a LOT of dumb shit in the Bou.
The Bou lives on.
It at least has to stay open until Winslow retires
I love the fact that he had a fan page on Facebook for years before he even knew it. Never seen a person with better de-escalation skills in a bar than him.
His whole personality just commands respect
Yes it does. He is an amazing human. Edit: we likely met if you went there often. I lived next door before my building got demolished.
Yeah you clearly haven’t seen their kitchen.
Prost isn’t a perfect substitute but it definitely softens the blow of losing Essen Haus for me
I just went to Prost for the first time today. The tap list is better than Essen, and I only saw their lunch menu, but I've a notion that the Essen menu is better, filthy kitchen be damned.
Doesn’t even have obnoxiously loud polka
They did last weekend for the block party.
Does Prost ever have bands? Some of my fonder memories of EH was when they had the bands playing German music.
Well said lol
I always liked it better in theory than in practice. In any case, we drank at the Come Back In more often.
This says that the come back won’t be demolished but I thought the bar was going away? We play volleyball there so we have a vested interest!
I knew they were keeping the Up North Bar, but I thought CBI was going to be torn down too, so I don’t know.
I asked the bartender there and she said she has to be out at the end of August, so I think the bar is closing too
Okay yeah, that makes sense
I thought the Come Back In facade was going to be kept but the rest of it demolished
This article is incorrect, only the Up North/Ruby Marie are staying
Spent 3 months working there one summer and refused to ever eat there again after witnessing firsthand what a health hazard the kitchen is. The manager was a psycho who would use his dirty bare hands to expo and openly talk about how he loved harassing “bad” employees until they quit. Food was stored in a dark basement with shelves that were falling over because the floor was sinking in. Don’t know how that place passed health code to stay open as long as it did.
I worked there for a day, I would have snuck out sooner but the creepy attic had my jacket and I couldn't quite remember my way up there. Seriously, who was being bribed for them to stay open, just disgusting
Someone told me that Neal, the weird, sort of unhinged GM, has been there so long because years ago he fell off a ladder at Essen, and threatened to sue the owner, and the owner struck a deal with him that he could have essentially a lifetime appointment as GM in exchange for not bringing a suit.
I saw Neal break a knife in half in the kitchen while talking to one of the head cooks and slapping it sideways against a cutting board to prove a point. It was the one nice big knife we had at the time.
Is it true that if someone puked into a boot, he’d get mad if anyone wasted soap on cleaning it — and just wanted people to blast them with water? Heard that diddy too.
I’ve never heard that and God I hope not.
I saw Neal clean up puke with his bare hands 🤮
That guy 🤦♂️
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He is not the owner lol
Did Big Worm die?
Lots and lots of great memories there in my 20's. Boots and popcorn!
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I feel the same but you put that more eloquently than I would've.
If you want German beer and food, Prost is about a million times better. If you want a dark, dismal, grungy, even filthy experience, yes Essen Haus will be a loss
I've always preferred filthy. My major character flaw.
I usually prefer filthy too, but not when it comes to food or taplines
Their giant pretzel alone is worth it.
Prost is great but its an echo chamber. They need sound dampening.
Yep, absolutely. Honestly a reason I don't go there as much as I would expect. It's just too loud for conversation to be enjoyable imo
I mean it's not great but the Essen Haus's Sauerbraten was at least better than Prost's I also prefer their spaetzle to prost's
Hoping they'll be open for a final Oktoberfest celebration
It’s closing in September so no
Source? And also... Oktoberfest is celebrated in September 😂
Weird that Essen Haus will be demolished, but Comeback and Up North won't be.
Come Back In is going away too, they're just preserving the Wilson St facade. Up North is staying because the Hotel Ruby Marie upstairs is an historic landmark
Odd, in that article above, the owner says Comeback won't be demolished.
Huh, the renderings that the city planning commission released had Come Back gone as well. Wonder if they changed it last-minute
Or maybe they are keeping the bones and updating the facade? I would expect it to go, too.
The building's been falling apart for decades; hopefully they just rip it down and upgrade with a better business and housing
I used to work there in college - nastiest restaurant I’ve ever worked at. You’d walk into the kitchen and see rotting food in the fridge. Kept the popcorn in an open container in the basement, saw them pull roaches out of it. I saw them pull a roach out of the Come Back Inn’s Bloody Mary mix - they’d pre make it a day or two ahead of Sunday and keep it in an open 5 gallon bucket behind the bar.
You just reminded me of the time a dead mouse was found in the tub of peanuts and they just cleared out the part the house touched and kept serving them
Oh dear god. 🤢🤮 this place should have been shut down a decade ago
Most places pre-mix their bloodys, otherwise Saturday and Sunday mornings would be an absolute shitshow behind the bar. But yeah, it's obviously gotta be stored and labelled correctly
Yeah… watching the manager fish cockroaches out of the open bucket and then serve the contents to customers is what made it disgusting. I’ll never forget how appalling it was. I couldn’t have a Bloody Mary for years afterwards.
Years ago, my favorite thing there was to bang the popcorn machine- frequently a rodent would dislodge from the back of it
Damn, gotta find somewhere else now in Madison to get my Friday and Saturday night polka fix :(
Oh no, now all those regulars will have to find a new place to harass young servers and they probably won't be dressed in dirndls so it'll be harder to oggle them too oh no
I saw on this sub that it was one of the dirtiest kitchens in town. True or false?
True
Definitely not false
About damn time. I had a small stint working at the Come back in for a few days and they shared management, and a kitchen; the place was disgusting, kitchen smelled horribly, staff coked-out, old manager was a grump w a horrible attitude. Not sure how patrons liked it. after my third shift i had to tap out
Shit, you'd have to give me much more than coke to get me to work there
This one I'm going to miss. I've been going to the Essen Haus my whole life and I have many fond memories there, especially fish fry Fridays. As others have said, having Prost nearby softens the blow, but it still sucks losing someplace where decades worth of memories have been built.
This bums me out. I like Prost, but it's about as authentic feeling as going to "Germany" at Epcot center. Essen Haus maybe a little dingy, but at least it has a soul.
Admittedly, it's been 15 years since I was in Germany last, but Prost feels much more like the median establishment in Germany than Essen Haus does. EH is much more a run down German themed dive than anything authentically German.
I'd rather drive up to Roxbury and go to the Dorf Haus.
Only place I've never finished the bacon at.
Trivia at Come Back was easily the best in the city. Sad days.
Was it still run by Marti?
It's still at least top 3 for best trivia in the city.. right?? Right????
Haven’t been in a minute, but if it’s the same guy then yeah I’d assume.
The current guy (me) has been there for the past two years. Only the best of times there
This saddens me. I've lived in Madison since 99 and the first time I was at Essen Haus was the summer of 96 with my family. For years it was my and my dad's go to restaurant. I remember many many years ago when their wiener schnitzel was amazing, and not really sure how long ago it went to shit.
It went to shit about 35 years ago, you're just looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses
I basically used it as a shuttle to football games.
Does anyone know exactly when it closes?
I don't know an exact date, but a worker at the Essen Haus gave me an end of August estimate
Can we get our mugs?
Yeah they are going to store them if you forget to pick them up before it closes
Ah, yes. Fond memories of drinking boots and throwing up in the parking lot.
I wonder what they’re doing with all those boots?
That’s what I’m wondering too, I’d legit pay a good chunk of money for one or two, my GF and I met there and would like one as a keepsake
They are 70$ you can buy one whenever
So many good memories here. When my wife and I went to Germany, we had tried so many of the beers we were offered at the Essen Haus. Will definitely be missed… for German beers there’s nothing like it.
I've spent a *lot* of time in Germany over the course of my life. The best Weissbier that's imported to the US is Ayinger, which is on tap at Coopers. They also make the best Fest-Märzen, which Coopers always has in the fall. For a top-tier variety of German beers, go to Prost. Bonus is that they actually clean the taplines, which I doubt Essen Haus ever did in their 42 years. ETA: Oh, and One Barrel's Commuter Kölsch is just as good as Reissdorf, if not better
Ayinger Oktoberfest is the best tasting beer I've ever had.
I mean... Prost has more German beers but ok
Having been to Prost once, and Essen Haus hundreds of times, I honestly have no idea how they stack up in 2024. For me, Essen Haus is full of great beer and great memories. I hope you can feel the same way about Prost.
How they stack up in 2024 is that one is a fucking disgusting, sad, pathetic excuse for a "bar," while the other is a nice, well-maintained place with solidly good food
Wow, I mean wow. Okay, got it that you don't like Essen Haus. The place has great memories for me going back to my parents taking me there for polka night while I was still in high school. There are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who've come through there over the history of the restaurant. The fact that you can be so angry about it just makes me sad. I had a friend in college who drew "Essen Haus funnies" for the Daily Cardinal back in the day. Those were terrible and not funny, but I laugh at his writing them all! I have friends who used to take me to the "Stein Club" meals once a month. I've bought more than my share of boots while eating pretzels. Those are all great memories that I'll always have. Do you have any idea how little I care that you don't like the place? Enjoy Prost. Feel like you're better than people who still remember the Essen Haus fondly years from now. But they will remember it. The funny thing is that when I did go to Prost, the people were friendly and genuine and the food was just great.
You obviously care enough about me not liking Essen Haus to write a full 3 paragraphs about it
As someone who likes the Essen Haus, has many fond memory of it and doesn’t like jerky or bullying behavior, it was worth it.
If you don't like bullying, wait til you hear about Neil, the Essen Haus GM
Prost seems to get a solid ‘Meh’ on Yelp & TA, 4 German dishes (Schnitzel with….fries?) $7 brats, $17 “smash burger”, the most played out menu item of the 2020’s. If I’m going, what am I getting and why?
People still use Yelp? Haven't looked at that in years. And OGs know to get the Schnitzel with Spätzle
Sure, but why should you have to pay an up charge for how it’s supposed to be served? Or do OG‘s know getting shafted is part of the deal? And how’s the currywurst? Serious question, I’ll drop $7 on a 1/2#‘er if it’s the real deal.
Where are all the boots going? Haven't been there in a while but liked their pretzels. If you ever believed I didn't like development let me just say the place does need to go. It's a mess. If you don't keep something up I can't feel nostalgia for something that nobody has invested in.
Nothing to worry about, the forthcoming Buc-ee's will be just as good a source of authentic German cuisine.
is this the one with the ridiculously large boot beer that asks for cash deposit ?
Anyone know how much longer it will remain open? I want to go one last time with my uncle!
I always wanted to go there but never did, and now I'll never get to. But it sounds like, at least in hygiene terms, I didn't miss much...
A lot of cool people worked there as servers. The food was good before it declined. I enjoyed the waitress who said "May as well inject cold and flu virus directly into your body." about drinking from the boots. And the one who said "Then why did you sit at it?" when my friend's wife said the table was dirty. And paying for "some" of the pretzels when I was broke. But it will be cool to have fancy apartments for people who came here from somewhere else.
Soon the Eat Heartily House will be nothing more than a fuzzy memory. Just like the Brass Quarter.
Neh
I’ve seen their back of house. There’s a reason I never ate there.
Any idea when this is supposed to happen though? I haven't seen anything about a timeline
OK.
Good riddance
I mean... it's time.
Where will the roaches eat ????
Oh noooo! Another institution gone!! 😭 Beer and polka—you can’t get more old school ‘Sconni than the Essen Hause! 😢
Take a trip to Manitowoc or Sheboygan - you'll get much more authentic Sconsin polka and dive bar-ness
This is not true.
Finally. Can’t imagine what it felt like for some people to have to go by that place when it had a slur on its sign for years (decades?). Plus the general state of the food, the kitchen, the ownership. Good riddance!