I never thought I’d set up my own business,” says Bele Stein. “I had no idea that I would become an entrepreneur.” Stein opened her eponymously named Bavarian restaurant in 2004, but with a twist. She didn’t set up her business in Munich, next to a Bavarian lake or in the Alps. Instead, she opened London’s first authentic Bavarian restaurant.
Bele Stein had been living and working in the British capital since September 1994. Then, in the early 2000s, her husband, Reinhard, noticed a scruffy, disused hut near their home in Richmond, near the Thames. “He applied for the hut behind my back,” she says, laughing. “A year or two later, we heard back from the local council, who owns the property. They told us the negotiations with another party had fallen through and we could have it.”
The couple had imagined what they would do to the hut and how they’d renovate it. The idea, says Bele, was “to have a little beer garden there”.
From dreams to reality
Suddenly, their dreamy chatter became reality, and they needed to come up with a serious business proposal. Reinhard Stein is an architect, with his own London-based business, 3s (Simple Space Solutions), meaning that the couple could design exactly the hut and beer garden they had imagined.
The bigger question was whether the Brits would go for this intercultural exchange. Would it attract enough people interested in eating Bavarian Wurst, Sauerkraut and Obatzda mit Brezel — and, of course, beer — all in a Bavarian beer-garden setting?
Bele and Reinhard Stein could remember the exciting, optimistic days of the late 1990s in Britain. Tony Blair was prime minister and a strong supporter of the European Union. When a number of central and eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004, Britain — unlike Germany and most other countries — welcomed Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks with open borders and open arms.
A love of Britain
Bringing Bavarian beer-garden culture to London was the Steins’ small contribution to inter-European cooperation. Bele had visited the UK as a schoolchild and was enthralled with the country. Reinhard, who had worked as an architect on the Bundestag and on Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne, wanted to improve his English and, at the same time, challenge himself as an architect in another country.
In London, Bele worked for Siemens and SAP, but, by the 2000s, she wanted a more flexible working environment so she could combine work with looking after the couple’s first child. This is when the idea of a Bavarian beer garden took hold. “In Germany,” says Bele, “we have this saying: Wer nichts wird, wird Wirt!” High motivation, the relative ease of setting up a business in the UK and something in the London zeitgeist persuaded the couple to go for it.
Intercultural curiosity
They were cautious, not knowing whether German culture, food and drink would be popular enough to sustain a business. “I don’t think there were any German restaurants in London at the time,” Reinhard says. “I found this rather sad. But everybody was talking about the Oktoberfest and about Sauerkraut — the nickname for Germans is ‘Krauts’ — so we thought, why don’t we actually eat it here?”
With their intercultural curiosity, the couple grew to love British humour, the relaxed, laid-back people, the language and the service-with-a-smile attitude. “Even our staff from Germany say they really appreciate this friendliness,” says Bele. “When they go back to Germany, they are shocked about how they are treated in a shop. Living in the UK, you get used to this idea of having a nice chat and being patient. It is a reverse culture shock when you go back to Germany and you get told off because you’re slow in the supermarket, or because you haven’t followed some sort of rule.”
The couple haven’t, however, got used to the quality of some of London’s houses. Their first house was a Victorian two-up two-down and they were stunned by the “cold sweeping through the floorboards,” says Reinhard. “It’s simply unimaginable in Germany.” He has comprehensively renovated the three houses they’ve had, adding concrete floors and underfloor heating. “I’m just surprised sometimes at what English society is prepared to put up with,” he says. “How can you not complain? It’s astonishing.”
Legal and cultural challenges
Once they had their business plan drawn up, the Steins decided to tackle the legal and cultural challenges of the British licensing laws. In Bavaria, going to a beer garden and sitting outside with a Weißbier or two with friends for a few hours is normal. Not in Britain — at least not back then. At the time, the local magistrate’s court dealt with licensing laws, and Bele had the difficult task of explaining the concept of a typical Bavarian beer garden. “I had to prepare almost a plea in a court case, with a barrister putting forward all of our arguments,” she explains.
“Then we had local organizations and neighbours there. Everybody had a say. I felt almost like a criminal.”
Reinhard agrees, adding: “We had to explain what Bavarian beer culture is. You know, having a beer outside after work. In the end, we got a restaurant licence, which is a kind of ‘soft licence’ that means you can only have alcohol with the consumption of food.” The rent on the hut was “quite low” says Bele, and their initial investment was around £120,000 (€135,000). In 2004, Stein’s: The Bavarian Experience opened in Richmond. Growth was steady and the business gained in strength. British and international customers loved the food and beer, served in a Bavarian-style beer garden, though Bele repeatedly had to explain to people that, no, they couldn’t just stop by for a beer, as in Bavaria. Those curious licensing laws, she told them, meant they had to order food if they wanted alcohol.
From promise to threat
In 2014, they opened a second Bavarian Experience, this time, in Kingston, with both indoor and outdoor seating. This was followed in 2018 by Stein’s Berlin, a cafe, restaurant and terrace in the Goethe Institute, wonderfully situated in Knightsbridge, within a few minutes of Hyde Park, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum.
Britain has at times bewildered the Steins, but for many years, it beguiled the couple — at least until 2016. The Steins’ vision of doing their bit to promote European understanding was more than idealism. They were living it, as were their (now) three children. They were committed to the UK. Their kids had only ever known Britain as their home, although their dual citizenship reflected the German part of their identity. Even before the 2016 Brexit referendum, Bele had become worried. The aggressive language and anti-foreigner sentiment of the Brexit campaign deeply disturbed her. And the atmosphere hasn’t improved, although she says “corona was almost a kind of relief for me, because it finally took my focus away from Brexit”. By early 2020, she had refocused her efforts on making sure her restaurant businesses survived Brexit and the coronavirus. The practicalities of importing everything she needs — from food to furniture — from Bavarian suppliers post-Brexit remains a huge concern.
No basis for planning
“Constant insecurity” are the words Bele uses to describe how she feels. The couple now have “settled status” to remain in the UK and are in the process of getting British citizenship. But some long-term employees have already left, including two managers who had worked at Stein’s for a decade. “Maybe by the end of all this, we end up with only one restaurant,” says Reinhard. “We just don’t know. But what we do know is that Stein’s is a great idea and we will certainly not give up. We just might need to be more flexible in terms of how we get back to our European idea.”
Bele’s entrepreneurial spirit continues to burn brightly. But she has a warning for entrepreneurs hoping to follow in her footsteps: “I wouldn’t currently recommend setting up a business here. I wouldn’t recommend coming to the UK now because you just can’t plan anything. With all our experience of more than 20 years here, we can just about handle this. But someone new — no chance. You just have no basis on which to plan anything.”