Cafe Weisses Haus - Wiesbaden, Germany

Americans will appreciate this photo. It is a replica of the White House in Washington, D.C.

Way back in the early 1900’s there was a gentleman named Friedrich Wilhelm Soehnlein, (sorry, my keyboard doesn’t have umlauts, those funny little dots that go on top of the o’s and u’s in German words, hence the oe in this guy’s name). He was a well known rich dude who produced sparkling wine (Sekt) in the region and contracted to build this villa for his wife. She was the well know Emma Pabst of the American brewery family and he wanted her to feel at home in far away Germany hence the name Weisses Haus,(White House).

There’s a bit of history as well with Americans as they liked the house so much the American military took it over in 1945 and used it until 1990. The family that owns it now started restoring in 2006 and about two weeks ago it opened as a café. I wish them well but have serious doubts about the success of this café. The setting is to die for with beautiful gardens and a wonderful view of one of Wiesbaden’s many gorgeous parks across the street. The service is another matter altogether.

It was a comedy and a tragedy and in spite of being annoyed, my friends and I couldn’t stop laughing at the comedy of it all. When you enter this café you choose your cake and are given a slip of paper with the cake number written on it. It appeared not help an iota as two of the three were the wrong. Our coffee arrived first and by the time the cake eventually arrived at our table it was actually cold. We observed two couples actually get up and leave in frustration. There were four wait staff and a supervisor type person and all appeared totally clueless. There was not one dedicated waiter per table and we personally were served by three different people. We watched as three waiters and supervisor got into a loud and heated discussion at the next table with the customers over the bill. We watched and laughed as waiters came out of the restaurant to the patio and went from table to table asking if this was their order! Kind of bizarre as each table was numbered and if the staff was dedicated to a table this would never have occurred.

We ordered some wine since it was my last day. The menu offered .1 liter and we asked for double that amount. We watched as the waitress brought the wine out and again went to four different tables before finally getting to ours. She simply could not remember an order from 5 minutes earlier. But the icing on the cake so to speak, we were not allowed to have a double glass of wine. Even though the glass was large enough and showed the .1 and .2 liter marks we were told, sorry no can do… We decided not to have a second glass and they lost about 12 euros on us. When the we asked for our bill another comedy ensued. The waiter didn’t know exactly what we had and my friend Petra quietly told him what we owed.

I don’t usually comment too much on restaurants but this time I couldn’t help myself. This is not an inexpensive place by any stretch. The simplest of breakfasts will set you back 15 euros and a piece of cake comes in around 4,70 euro. Mistakes like the ones we witnessed should have been ironed out in the first week max and this place should have been running like clockwork. Sadly it was not. Will it survive? Probably… but only because of the amazing ambience, not the service…