Surprise surprise…. Where was this photo taken?
 
This restaurant called CHROME is an original American Diner at http://www.chrome-diner.de/. Sure enough we had to check it out. It is about 6 km from where we live. We drive by it often, and every time we passed by it I wondered “Who on earth built this diner and who decided that this would be its future location? “ This restaurant is located at a highway smack in the middle of nowhere in Northern Germany though the highway is on direct route to Scandinavian countries.
Finally we parked our car in front of this diner. Not knowing what to expect, we entered the restaurant. The first thing I saw was the ever so familiar sign “Please wait to be seated!” I cried out impulsively to Bob’s chagrin: “Oh we are on vacation tonight!” Meaning I felt right at home, the right language was spoken, no need to translate for Bob…. Bob however gave me the sign to please hush. But I was too thrilled: I introduced Bob to the audience with the words “He is an American from Seattle. We are on vacation!”
We were seated at the retro style booth when the owner greeted us with an enthusiastic “Guten Abend. Was kann ich fuer Sie tuen?” Having no shame, I ploughed right forward with all the immediate questions I had: Who are you? Why do you have the diner? How about the funny location? An original diner – what do you mean?”
Joerg, the owner, patiently explained with his very good English (he used to work for Lufthansa) that the diner truly was ordered in Orland, Fl. It was built there in 1999; three trucks took the Diner from Orlando to Miami; from Miami it was shipped to Bremerhaven; another three trucks took it to its new location Lensahn (about 1.5 hours north-east of Hamburg; at the Baltic Sea). This is the only diner in Germany that was originally built in the US.
Apparently the previous owner was a huge US-fan which you will find often in Germany (US flags on poles; Harley Davidson; old cars, American food and and..) who unfortunately, declared bankruptcy. Mind you, he immigrated to the US and now lives in California and works as a mechanic.
Joerg bought the Diner three years ago. Never thought he would do that but here he is serving us onion rings as appetizers; burgers much larger than what I know from the US and much more filling too because they use 100% beef (they are not quite the loose kind-of-meat patties I am used to from the US) and they create their own sauces with it.
A chuckle: They do not sell French Fries but sell American Fries or Country Fries. They do not sell American beer despite all the American beer signs. Just German beers. So we settled on “Alster Wasser”, a beer mixed with lemonade which were very tasty.
Owner Joerg was a little concerned about the fact that we did not eat our Coleslaw Salad? Germans are very direct that way… actually the coleslaw was very good but we were too full.
Boy we enjoyed our couple of hours of vacation from German life! Even possible in a remote area of Germany.
A PS: Yes re-fills were in order for coffee and sodas not for beer though he said. It is highly unusual in Germany to get any kind of refills without paying for it. The interior – outlets, lamps and lavatories with flush toilets; as well as the art work on the walls to condiments we were showed & told are all originally from the US - MADE IN THE US.
|
Saturday came around; time for breakfast came around….since Gerlinde Naegle insisted we found ourselves cycling to the Bio-Farm, Demeter certified, 
Gerlinde made oven-fresh Broetchen’s (rolls) from their own flour ground by a real stone mill. Their cheeses, organic products from their 40 or so milk cows and a few goats grazing happily and contently around the meadows, are delicious, especially their red-peppercorn butter cheeses on top of the Broetchen. 
