Welcome to Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg’s oldest restaurant!

For over 100 years, the „Metzer Eck“ has been family-owned. Not many places have preserved such an authentic flair as this pub with its patina-covered, cozy interior, the old bar and the many photos on the walls that tell of prominent visitors and quaint pub evenings from long ago.

And you can still enjoy the beer on tap, the Hackepeterstulle and the Bulette with fried potatoes here – just like 50 or 80 years ago.

When the housemaid Clara Vahlenstein opened her beer pub in 1913 with a lottery win, the area had already changed fundamentally. Only a few years before, the local, largely undeveloped „Windmühlenberg“ was considered an excursion destination for Berliners. In the meantime, the notorious tenement buildings with their backyards stood close together here, and the subway rushed by nearby. Good for „Vahlenstein’s Distille“ Here, workers felt just as comfortable as the intellectuals and artists who lived in the area.

What times! After World War I, inflation and the Great Depression had to be survived, and the Golden Twenties led into the years of the „Third Reich. Nevertheless, people continued to meet in the popular corner pub. In 1926, the „Windmühlenberg“ savings association was founded in the pub, into which everyone could pay their pennies and then go with the whole company, for example, on weekends „to the Jrüne“. Heinrich Zille, who so aptly captured the Berlin „Millöh“ with his drawings, could not come to the ball in 1927 because of his „Beenkins“ (legs) – the guest can still read his letter on the wall in the rear bar room.

After cleaning up the ruins of the Second World War, the pub on the corner of Metzer Strasse and Strassburger Strasse was given its present name, „Metzer Eck.“ In 1951, the founder Clara Vahlenstein died, and her daughter Charlotte took over. She had already been at the counter since her father’s death in 1936. In 1957, Charlotte’s daughter Bärbel joined the business, which was now once again a two-woman business.

The Windmill Hill, formerly an excursion destination for residents of Berlin, was built around 1900 with war reparations from the German-French War.

Clara & Hermann Vahlenstein and their distillery

Until the turn of the millennium, Bärbel managed the restaurant, actively supported by her partner Alex Margan, who brought out all the treasures – old documents, savings books of the club, pictures, badges, and much more – from the cellar of the „Metzer“ and presented them in the restaurant. Finally, Bärbel’s son Horst Falkner, the great-grandson of the founder, took over the restaurant with his wife Sylvia in 2000. Unfortunately, he had only a few years left before he died in 2007 after a short, serious illness. Since then Sylvia Falkner has been running the business alone.

What a cozy round often found together on the chairs and benches. This is where couples met and got married, where people exchanged good and not-so-good news from the neighborhood and the big wide world (which until 1989 was mainly the relatively small one of the GDR).

Famous artists celebrated in the „Metzer Eck“, including Udo Lindenberg, Otto Waalkes, star director Sergio Leone and famous actors like Kurt Böwe and Ursula Karusseit. In 1989 the premiere party of the probably most famous DEFA film „Spur der Steine“, which was banned in GDR times, took place in the pub with Manfred Krug and many other artists.

Dear guests, take a look at the many photos and letters on the „Metzer Eck“ walls. And ask us if you want to know something more detailed. After all, we were there!

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Opening Hours:

Mo – Fr von 16:00 – 00:00 o’clock

Sa von 18:00 – 00:00 o’clock

Sunday closed

kitchen closes: 22:00 o’clock