EXBERLINER Issue 164, October 2017

CHARLOTTENBURG
DIARY
A NIGHT WITH THE PARROT
It’s one of the last alternative outposts in an ever-slicker
Charlottenburg, and – perhaps more importantly – one of the
very few 24-hour breakfast joints in Berlin. What’s kept the
eggs scrambling and the cocktails shaking at Schwarzes Café for
nearly 40 years? Aske Hald Knudstrup set off to find out.
17:15
Saturday afternoon – A
colourful parrot rendered
in neon welcomes me as I approach the
entrance to Kantstraße 148. The Schwarzes
Café holds a mythical status in Berlin, lauded
not just for its age and history, but its openmindedness
and sheer human diversity. I’m
spending the night here to experience, feel
and, hopefully, understand what has made it
possible for the legendary alternative meeting
point to survive in a neighbourhood more
associated with soul-sucking capitalism than
“black” anarchy, as still inferred in its name.
Haven’t Berlin anarchists long since headed
East? What keeps the café ticking besides the
allure of breakfast, cocktails and schnitzel 24
hours a day, seven days a week?
Despite a brief rainshower, the five sidewalk
tables are filled with people sipping coffee and
beer. Once inside, you face the decision:
will you sit in the spacious, more modern
upstairs area or do you opt for the rustic,
darker, cramped room in the back? I choose
the latter, place myself by a silk- covered hole
in the wall and order from the waiter, Aldo,
a mild-looking guy with a samurai bun and
loose pants who happily sings along to the
Amy Winehouse song on the stereo.
19::50
The pervasive smell of
melted butter reaches my
nostrils. On my table lies a plate of spaghetti
and chanterelles, covered with a generous
amount of dried chilli, oil and Parmesan. By
no means is it anything special, but for the
price of €10, you get a fine, no-frills meal.
On the back of the hefty menu there’s a copy
of Schwarzes Café’s famous anti-rape flyer
from 1987, a two-page manifesto against an
objectifying, violent male culture and proclaiming
the café would henceforth have an
entrance fee for men, which would go towards
women’s shelters. (It was never implemented.)
If it were another place, the old flyer might
seem like a tacky attempt to capitalise on feminism.
Here it’s a confirmation of Schwarzes
Café’s political origin, an assurance that they
still use it as a point of orientation today.
21::51
Two very German men, burly
and charmingly loud, sit
with their wives on the red leather benches
in the corner, eating fries and oversized
schnitzel. The neon parrot shines brightly in
the window just as it has since the 1980s, a
rebellious sign of life between dark shopping
windows displaying Italian refrigerators
and Danish sound systems.
If you enjoy people-watching, Schwarzes
Café is the place to go. It’s a textbook
example of that Berlin spirit where those
from all walks of life tolerate each other.
Just before Aldo ends his shift, he summarises
it nicely: “A lot of things may have
changed outside and inside the café. But
what you can’t take away from this place is
German Palomeque
the feeling that everyone is welcome, even
the crazy people that come in at seven in
the morning after a night out.”
23::00
So far, this evening’s clientele
is easy to summarise:
middle-aged friends and couples, families
and a few lone wolves. One of those, a man in
his fifties with a flat cap and wool cardigan,
is enjoying a glass of red wine and the latest
edition of Der Spiegel. He’s not much of a
talker and won’t even give his name. “Which
is exactly why I come here. Hours can pass by
where you are totally undisturbed,” he says.
He’s right. The waiters and waitresses
seem to read customers’ minds in an instant.
If you want to stare at the murals of gladiator
film sets and can-can girls for hours, you can.
If you want to chat with the staff, you can.
Our new server, a woman with dreadlocks
and a dark brown crop top, heartily clinks
her glass with a beer-drinking guest who asks
about Michael Dauer, the only one of the
original Schwarzes Café founders who still
owns the place. In an interview for the café’s
20th anniversary, Dauer called the café his
ongoing battle to fulfil his ‘68 hippie dream.
As the music changes from The Beatles
to Jay-Z, all played from homemade cassette
tapes, the looming midnight attracts a
dozen students who cramp together in the
corner, constantly shifting places as they
take turns going out for a smoke.
02::20
I’m leaving my newfound
home, the chair by the
wall, as a waitress barely manages to heave
the vacuum cleaner down the stairs. Apparently
(and thankfully), the staff’s cleaning
duties aren’t just limited to Tuesdays between
3-10am, the only time Schwarzes Café
closes to customers.
The seemingly never-ending stream of
people has dwindled. Upstairs, past the huge
number 78 written on the staircase, around
half of the 40 tables are occupied. Some couples
look like they are melted together, but
mostly it’s various Berliners enjoying a night
out. The fifth rose seller of the night smiles
with satisfaction, finally having some success
as he unloads his bouquet on a drunken man
and his laughing friends for €50.
It seems rather quiet for a Saturday night.
Carmen, a slim, blond waitress with a colourful
Flintstones t-shirt and lots of piercings in
her ears, says the mild early autumn weather
has kept more people outside than usual.
“In winter it can be like hell at five in the
morning, drunk people everywhere,” she
says, carefully delivering two freshly made
cocktails to the clingy couple next to us.
When you look at the staff of Schwarzes
Café, there seems to be one common denominator:
old or young, fancy or plain, they’re all
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EXBERLINER 164