EXBERLINER Issue 153, October 2016

AMERICAN BERLIN
THE
NEW OLD
GUARD
After the Wall came down but
before Berlin was the place to
be, these Americans came to
town and helped shape the city’s
cultural landscape – from
burgers to TV to rock ‘n’ roll.
THE BURGER KING:
Wally Potts
The name “White Trash Fast Food” says
it all: the product (burgers, tats and rock
music), the give-no-fucks attitude which has
sustained Walter “Wally” Potts’ enterprise
through four locations and multiple backlashes,
the dash of irony which, given White
Trash’s current incarnation as a sprawling
tourist magnet on the edge of insolvency, has
faded somewhat.
With his huge full beard, handlebar mustache,
tattoos and omnipresent hat, Potts
remains proudly American, although – despite
White Trash’s reputation for Englishonly
waitstaff – his German is actually quite
fließend. He first came here on an exchange
programme in 1990, while he was still in art
school; after his graduation, in 1993, he decided
“Berlin was the most interesting place to
be” and came back to what was then the city’s
premier destination for arty expats: Mitte.
It was there that Potts, raised between
California and Oklahoma, found his niche.
“I was living in a squat on Auguststraße,
doing Volksküche to make money. When
the Germans were cooking, it was a white
plate. Cabbage, rice, potato. No sauce, just
salt and pepper. I started making Mexican.”
In keeping with the DIY spirit of the times,
he opened a pop-up by Hackescher Markt
in 2000. “The DJ played out of a portable
stereo, and we didn’t have a liquor license. I
didn’t even wash my hands!” Potts jokes, taking
it back a second later.
White Trash’s first official location, opened
in 2002 in a former Chinese restaurant on
Torstraße, is the one all the longtime expats
like to reminisce about: an underground,
“members-only” restaurant and club where
Berlin’s bohemian crowd (Peaches was an
early regular) gathered for raucous all-night
parties and what were, back then, the city’s
only proper hamburgers. But by the time
Potts expanded into a multifloor operation
on Schönhauser Allee, the neighbourhood
was already on its way out. “We had 178
noise complaints!” Potts says angrily. By
2014, the landlord had nearly doubled White
Trash’s rent, and that was the last straw.
Rather than simply move house, Potts
created a multiplex shrine to Americana,
located by Badeschiff in Treptow. The latest
White Trash boasts a biergarten, a stateof-the-art
BBQ pit, a 900-capacity concert
hall, a tattoo parlour, a large indoor dining
area and a skateboard ramp. No wonder
Potts had to file for bankruptcy this year.
“It was more like a restructuring,” he
maintains. “The bank was asking for their
money back, but we weren’t finished with
construction yet.”
The underground crowds are long gone,
but the burgers (made from organic Brandenburg
beef), barbecue and Tex-Mex fare
are as satisfying as ever. “If somebody had
once told me that one day I’d be making a
burger restaurant here as an American, I
would’ve been pissed off,” Potts admits. “I’m
not interested in being the best restaurateur
out there. I still feel like I’m faking it. I
guess that’s the charm.” He pauses, catching
himself midway. “I don’t know if it’s still
charming.” — Dani Arbid/Rene Blixer
THE SCENE MUM:
Melissa Perales
To call Melissa Perales a multitasker would
be putting it lightly. As a booker, promoter,
music supervisor, co-organiser of Torstraßenfestival
and co-founder of the musician support
network Music Pool Berlin, the Berliner
of 21 years fosters the city’s indie music scene
while also raising two boys, aged two and 15.
Call it an American thing. “I hated how slow
Berlin was when I first came here,” the 46-yearold
Chicago expat admits. “People were
hanging out in the park. Why are these people
so lazy? I was pissed.” And so, after “three
or four months of partying,” the Columbia
College grad got to work – first organising the
underground film festival Circles of Confusion
at the Volksbühne and Babylon Kino in
1995, then, after a three-year spell back in the
States, joining the collective at the squat and
venue Schokoladen in 1998. Later, in 2002, she
opened the restaurant Urban Comfort Food on
Zionskirchstraße, serving three-course meals
for €7.50. “I like to bring people together,” she
says. “Set a scene. Like making a film.”
The ultimate way to do that, she discovered,
was through music. On leaving her restaurant
in 2004, she began putting on regular shows at
Schokoladen under the name M:Soundtrack, a
mix of international acts (the Canadian band
Great Lake Swimmers was her first concert)
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