Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004 | 8:20 a.m.
Owner/operator Tanya Brandl is rarely seen without her dierndl, the traditional Bavarian dress for women (fans of St. Pauli Girl beer will recognize it immediately), and she often communicates in German to most of her employees, including her mother, Theresia, who works as a deli attendant and prep cook.
Got time for a hot meal? Brandl's menu includes specialty schnitzels and sausages, as well as classics like goulash and sauerbraten (wine-marinated pot roast). On the go? Pick up your favorite ingredients at the cafe's market, which offers everything from white asparagus to spaetzle to hot fefferoni, and at the deli, where you can find teewurst, blutwurst, knackwurst, herring and caviar.
In addition to German crests and signs for advertisements for various types of beer, the establishment is filled with oompah music flowing from a CD player perched on a shelf in the market.
But nothing in Brandl's shop is a gimmick. She doesn't wear a dierndl because she wants to attract customers; she wears it because it's part of her heritage. And while the atmosphere at Cafe Heidelberg is one of festivity and merriment, when it comes to sticking to tradition, Brandl is all business.
Her priority in life is continuing her Bavarian heritage, and that includes marrying a German man, having a traditional Bavarian wedding and raising her 4-year-old son, Adrian, according to tradition.
"He wears his lederhosen," Brandl said, referring to the short leather pants worn with suspenders by males. In addition, her husband, Harald, speaks only German to his son.
In short, if it isn't from Bavaria, you won't find it in Brandl's cafe. (OK, she sells Budweiser and Bud Lite, but what restaurant doesn't?)
The German restaurant and market, at the west end of a shopping center on East Sahara Avenue, welcomes customers with a large, blue awning. The interior is separated into three distinct areas: the "Bavarian Room," a dining area that seats 25; a market/deli; and the wine and beer "cellar."
The dining area is relatively small, with six wooden booths spread out on greenish-blue carpet against wood paneling. White tablecloths are accented with overlays of flowers and dancing figures, and some of the beers of Germany line a shelf that stretches around the room.
Fake foliage provides the shelf trim, and glass light fixtures hang low over each table.
The wine and beer cellar is dominated by a bar with 12 stools, opposite which sits a see-through refrigerator containing German beers. Wine bottles are displayed next to the refrigerator, and a small dining area containing four tables adjoins the room.
The deli/market, in addition to rows of dry and canned goods and display cases for the meats and fish products, contains several glass display cases offering beer steins, nutcrackers and wine glasses.
Brandl recently celebrated her establishment's seventh anniversary, and with her parents deciding to settle in Las Vegas, she seems content to remain here.
Family ties
Brandl was born in 1967 in London to a family on the move. Her father, Leonard, worked in different capacities for companies such as General Motors, Boise Cascade and Bendix Corp., and by the time Brandl was 5 years old, she had already lived in London; Garden Grove, Calif.; and Nebraska.
But regardless of where she lived, her mother, who was born in Bavaria, made sure her daughter never forgot her roots.
Brandl began wearing a dierndl at age 2, and visited her grandmother, Eliese, in Germany at least once a year.
Those visits had a profound impact.
"I remember her heating up water to take baths, peeling potatoes, going to the yard to pick and chop wood for the stove, warming up the hot water bottle," Brandl said. "She lived in a 150-year-old house and didn't have a car."
She also learned the basics of food preparation.
"My grandmother would pluck pigeons and get me fresh rolls or meat from the butcher," Brandl said. "It was all fresh. No cans."
Brandl's first restaurant experience would come early in life. Shortly after moving to Sandy Springs, Ga., in 1973, Leonard was needed in Europe on company business. Rather than continue moving his family around, he used his considerable resources to build his wife her own restaurant in Georgia.
The Old Munich Gasthaus opened in 1974, complete with live oompah-band music.
"I wanted to give my wife something to do," said Leonard, who continued to live in Europe but visited his family once a month.
The restaurant also gave his daughter something to do -- and established her career goals early in life.
"I basically lived there," Brandl said. "I cleaned tables, helped put items in the showcases and I danced with the band occasionally. I was a pretty good dancer for a little girl."
She wore a dierndl "because Mom thought it was fashionable. I also had to have long hair in braids."
It started out as work, but as Brandl grew up, she discovered she loved coming to the restaurant after finishing her school studies.
"It was so much fun," she said. "It was huge -- 200 seats with a piano lounge, three stories, a big huge dance floor and a huge gift shop."
Many of the decorations from that restaurant now adorn her Las Vegas establishment.
A clear path
In 1980 Leonard moved his family to Villa Park, Calif., following a corporate restructuring. They sold the restaurant, and Brandl went from being an adept restaurant employee to "just a normal high school student."
That didn't last long, however. She soon took a job at the Burger King in Villa Park, and her talent for the business led to her promotion to supervisor by the time she was 16.
She worked there the next five years, dividing her time between work and school. "I didn't have any extracurricular activities," she said.
But thanks to her hard work in school, Brandl's decision on what college to attend was made for her.
"I got a scholarship from the UNLV Alumni Association that I didn't even apply for," she said. "I wanted to go into hotel management, but now I knew exactly where to go."
During her years at the UNLV College of Hotel Administration, Brandl interned at hotels and restaurants in Germany, most of which were owned and operated by friends she made during her earlier visits.
Those internships worked in her favor when she graduated in 1990. She was one of 200 selected countrywide by Hyatt for its college-placement program.
"It took longer than expected for me to graduate because of the internships, but I think it gave me a real edge," she said. "They gave me my pick of hotel and what I wanted to do.
"I chose purchasing director because I was very intrigued by the accounting side. I was always very good at accounting and math."
Brandl would have been content to work behind the scenes in the hotel industry, but fate intervened.
After one year as purchasing director at the Hyatt Islandia in San Diego, Brandl was informed the company was downsizing, and she would have to choose another job there. She decided to manage restaurants in the Hyatt, and alternated restaurants every six months.
"I was disillusioned at first," she said. "I experienced my first restructuring. But once I moved over to restaurant management, I really enjoyed it."
In 1994, Brandl left the Hyatt to work in food service in a federal government building in San Diego.
"I just wanted a change," she said. "I fed the masses for a while."
After 18 months Brandl went to work at a Stuart Anderson's Black Angus in San Diego, and in six months was transferred and promoted to general manager of her own Black Angus in another part of the city.
"I was the only female manager in San Diego for Stuart Anderson's at the time," she said. "It was quite an honor."
Striking out
Brandl's ties to Las Vegas didn't end once she moved to California. In addition to her parents living there (they moved there in 1990 to be closer to their daughter), she kept tabs on a German market called the Old Heidelberg, which she used to visit while attending UNLV.
"I'd buy German chocolates, cold cuts and beer," she said. "Every time I went there I thought, 'I could do this and that.' I had a vision."
In 1997, Brandl received word from her parents that the Old Heidelberg's owners were retiring.
"It was perfect timing," she said. "I felt I had done enough for corporations."
She bought the business, changed the name -- "I really didn't like the word 'Old' in the title," she said -- and created an entirely new menu, using ideas from her visits to Germany.
"I try to keep it traditional, but it's all Bavarian cuisine," she said.
She has 10 employees, including her mother and two chefs, and in 2002 expanded when the beauty salon next to her cafe closed. It is now the beer and wine cellar.
"They had eight beers available when I came here; we now have 45," she said.
Family matters
Brandl met her future husband in February 1999. A master sausage maker from Munich, Harald visited her establishment shortly after moving to Las Vegas to work at The Rio.
"He wanted to know where all the Germans were in Las Vegas. He thought this would be the focal point. Needless to say ..." she said, laughing.
But Harald found at least one German at Cafe Heidelberg, and he and Brandl were married in June of that year.
"I had a desire to marry a German man and marry traditionally," she said. "We married in Bavaria in full Bavarian dress for his family and here in suits and gowns for my folks."
Harald has since moved over to Neiman Marcus at the Fashion Show mall as a restaurant manager, and he and Brandl take turns watching Adrian.
"Adrian loves to come in here," Brandl said. "He takes an extreme interest in this culture."
And Brandl loves having her own establishment, which allows her to put her love of food and management to work.
"I determine how hard I have to work, how successful I am," she said. "This reflects the culture I love, and I can have fun with it."
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