It took 10 years, but Tacoma’s German beer hall is finally open — for real this time

Jubilant cheers of “zicke zacke, zicke zacke, hoi hoi hoi!” reverberated around the beer hall. Staff, on this celebratory evening decked out in dirndls and lederhosen, ferried trays of beer mugs, schnitzel and sausages to communal tables of customers — some of whom had waited, along with the proprietors, a full 10 years to soak in these suds.

Lydia and Dennis Mascarinas bought the building at 2401 Pacific Ave. in 2013. They thought their second German-themed beer bar and restaurant would take a couple of years to create, maybe three. In October, more than 10 years later and one outside-their-control false start, Berliner Beerhall opened in Tacoma.

This time, it’s for real.

At the grand opening party Oct. 28, the Happy Hans German Band, established 1976, played accordions on the mezzanine while the crowd — outfitted in a coincidental medley of everyday garb, Halloween costumes and traditional Bavarian attire — line-danced through the restaurant in between sips of Bitburger pilsner and König zwickl.

They noshed on thin and crispy homemade chips, buttery, hand-cut spätzle sprinkled with minced parsley, braised red cabbage, smashed pork so big it almost covered the plate.

Old friends and new seated on long benches linked arms and swayed back and forth. They stood, linking arms again to weave through the communal tables, up and down the stairs. They formed a circle and raised their hands high, then pretended to swim, to a funny ditty called “Fliegerlied,” or “The Flyer Song.” One pretty talented woman from the crowd yodeled with the band. Lydia and Dennis bounced around the room, saying “guter tag” and “danke” to those who had followed their journey and those who might have popped in when they noticed they could finally see through the windows.

It was very, very kuhl.

Sitting on stools around the coveted fire pit table two days prior, Dennis, catching Lydia’s eye, admitted: “She won’t believe me, but I think it was supposed to be this way.”

BEERHALL IN WAITING

Berliner Beerhall actually, kind of, sort of opened seven years into the couple’s Tacoma story, but that March 13ish, 2020, debut was not meant to be.

As restaurants shut down and the world skidded to a sudden halt, the Mascarinas laid off their just-hired staff, boarded up the new glass windows and went home, where they spent unexpected quality time with their two young teenage sons and a puppy they had promised to get “when the beer hall opened.”

They also paused their original Berliner Pub in Renton that, since 2011, had been a neighborhood favorite and a destination worthy of a stop off Interstate 5. It reopened in July 2022 after a more than two-year hiatus.

“We didn’t pivot,” said Lydia, emphasizing the word that came to define the emotional art of pandemic survivalism, “because we’re a German beer hall! It’s the experience, it’s the atmosphere. You sit next to someone, you link arms, and you polka!”

Also, Dennis noted of interrupted international supply chains, “We couldn’t get German beer.”

Berliner exclusively pours German beer, made possible through frequent visits to breweries overseas, including the world’s oldest Weihenstephaner, which produces their house IPA — as hoppy as it gets here, where quaffable, beer-drinker’s beer is what’s on tap.

They laugh about it now, kind of, sort of. Others might have walked away, but they had “reached a point of no return,” said Lydia.

Since 2013, for Tacomans or South Sounders who pay at least passing attention to the restaurant scene and downtown development, Berliner Beerhall had been an illusion — and perhaps a cautionary, inspiring tale that, in a sense, began in the late 1980s.

The Mascarinas both lived in West Germany, separately, before the Wall fell. Lydia was born in Australia to an Austrian mother and German father; Dennis is from the Philippines but moved to California, then Seattle, at a young age. She was backpacking through the United States only to be wooed by a Pacific Northwest summer and a salsa dancing class at the Aristocrat’s Club, which he had run since the late ‘90s. (They sold the nightclub in 2008, and it has since been torn down and replaced by a high-rise apartment building.)

Together they carried fond memories of German culture, especially the neighborhood brauhaus.

“It was a family place,” said Dennis.

With their first son in tow, they longed for such a place, and so, as entrepreneurs — the kind who persevere through a decade of repurposing an early 20th-century building, permit changes and a pandemic — they created it themselves.

“We wanted it to be like a place in Germany,” recalled Lydia. “At first, it wasn’t intended to be a whole restaurant. We thought we’d just sell some sausages and warm potato salad. But customers, they wanted German food.”

Chef Adolfo Arias, trained in schnitzel-making by Lydia’s mother, has been with them since 2011, as has general manager Greg Miller, now handling the day-to-day in Tacoma while his wife manages the pub.

A 10-YEAR JOURNEY

Built in 1927 as three storefronts, MacKenzie’s Pharmacy had the corner of Pacific and 24th, with a private medical clinic and apartments on the second floor. At some point in the modern era, the ground floor was converted to a bar. It had been vacant for years when the Seattle couple bought it, and it needed a lot of work.

Funded only through their savings and loans from friends and family, they enlisted local architect Ambrose Lobato and stripped it nearly bare, leaving only the masonry and original timber supports. Seismic upgrades required that they install “a cube of seismic support” underground. The resulting steel beams visible throughout the 7,300-square-foot restaurant bring contemporary lines to the otherwise rustic space, notable for its high ceilings with iron chandeliers, exposed brick, huge windows and a deck.

When they first found it, “This area was no-man’s land,” said Dennis. The redevelopment of Brewery Blocks and creation of a Brewery District was still an idea; the newly constructed apartment buildings were but pie in the sky. “People would ask us, ‘You’re gonna do what?’”

Like the pub in downtown Renton, they wanted their second location to become an anchor to an area that had “room for growth and development,” he continued. “The whole concept of a beer hall was a community bar. It didn’t make sense in Seattle at the time. In Renton, we wouldn’t pull people from other restaurants or bars. We offer something different. We’d hear people say they came all the way to Renton from Tacoma or Olympia, so we knew there was an audience down here for this sort of thing.”

By March 2020, Lydia told me in a phone call before things went haywire, “Tacoma was just on the cusp of being ready to take off. Seven years later … Tacoma is taking off.”

Over the summer (2023, that is), a concerned follower inquired on their last Facebook post, from 2021: “Is this ever coming back?” They promptly responded, “Believe it or not, we will be back. We worked too hard and too long to give up now!”

In late September, they shared the opening date.

“When it gets cold and rainy,” said Lydia, “that’s when you think of a dark beer and a sausage.”

Astute observers might notice the Mariano’s Pies sign around the corner at 112 South 24th Street. The beer hall prep kitchen is downstairs, and through this other entrance are Blodgett deck ovens, ready to cook New York-style pizzas when the time feels right — a.k.a. pretty darn soon.

BERLINER BEERHALL

▪ 2401 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, berlinerbeerhall.com

▪ Monday-Friday 3 p.m.-10 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 11 a.m.-midnight

▪ Details: modern German brauhaus with all-German beer (including nonalcoholic on tap), plus Bavarian-inspired fare, burgers and wings; check Facebook for occasional live music info

▪ What to order: schnitzel, spätzle, sausage, pretzel, homemade chips; beer in 0.2, 0.5 or 1L servings

This story was originally published November 9, 2023 at 5:30 AM.