Old New York: Christmas is Served, at Rolf's German Restaurant

By Mitch Broder

The angels appeared to be tooting, but there was no way I could have heard them, what with all those other people chattering away on our branch.

Still, I couldn’t help liking my afternoon in the tree, even if I couldn’t help expecting an icicle to fall and puncture my head.

Anyone who will listen knows that I get sick of the holiday season around the time that the first bag of candy corn arrives at Duane Reade. I blame this on years of working at newspapers where every story written after Labor Day began: “Christmas came early for...”

I used to look forward to going to, say, Rockefeller Center. Now I almost look forward to not going to it. But Bob Maisano said his place is different. He said I must come see it. And he was right. Christmas came early for me, at Rolf’s German Restaurant.

Rolf’s is not a restaurant with a Christmas tree. Rolf’s is a Christmas tree with a restaurant. It is a place packed with ornaments, lights, fake pine, fake ice, and fake snow, such that you don’t feel like you’re around a tree; you feel like one’s around you.

The dominant feature are the ball ornaments, in clusters of red and gold. Also the icicle ornaments, aiming squarely at your head. Also the tiny lights, of which Bob says there are 85,000. Every feature is dominant. Everything glistens or glitters or glows.

Walk around, if you can, and you’ll pick out the dolls and the sleighs and the tooting and fiddling angels, and maybe the three Santas swigging Merlot. And none of it’s junk. That is, none of it’s cheap. Bob says that the thousands of pieces are mostly nineteenth-century German antiques.

Last year, I chatted with Bob on a sultry summer’s day, when the crowd at Rolf’s, besides me, consisted of Bob. When it’s hot, people withdraw from jaeger schnitzel and smoked bratwurst. That’s why Rolf’s needed Christmas. That’s why Christmas there lasts for three months.

It wasn’t like that in 1968, when Rolf Hoffman opened the place. Back then, the patrons were satisfied with glowering waitresses in dirndls. It was Ben House who decided to fortify the holiday décor when he and Bob took over, after Rolf died in 1981.

Ben started off cheap. Bob says his taste ran to dollar-store silver garlands and animated polar bears swigging martinis. “You wouldn’t know if it was a restaurant or a store that sold Christmas decorations,” Bob says. “He loved Christmas decorations. … It seemed like the business was secondary to that.”

Ben died in 1996, and Christmas fell to Bob. He bypassed the dollar stores in favor of New England antique barns. He added stuff each year, and his tree became a destination. “If we didn’t have this Christmas here,” he says, “we wouldn’t have this business here.”

Rolf’s perked me up, at least until I hear “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” And perking people up, Bob says, justifies the six weeks of installation.

“Maybe they had a bad time somewhere. Maybe they had a bad day at work. And at least they walked in here and had a moment of happiness.”

Find happiness at Rolf’s German Restaurant, at 281 Third Avenue, between 22^nd and 23^rd streets, in New York City.

Rolf's German Restaurant: Four Wursts, No Waiting

By Mitch Broder

Today’s forecast for New York City is scorching and stifling.

Will you be having the weisswurst, the knackwurst, the bratwurst, or the smoked bratwurst?

Didn’t think so. And you’re not alone — which is why Bob Maisano often is.

Bob is the owner of Rolf’s, an old-fashioned German restaurant that serves old-fashioned German food, which is not light summery fare. In the fall people line up here for the bodily insulation, and for the dazzling Christmas lights. In July you can hear the sauerkraut settle.

“When people think of German, they think of Bavarian, which is what we are,” Bob reflected one afternoon when I stopped in for air-conditioning. “You have your sauerbraten, your schnitzel, your sausage, your potato pancakes. And people go to outdoor cafés in the summer, and we don’t have one.”

Having one might help. But probably not. Then you’d be out of the air-conditioning with your rahm schnitzel in cream sauce. The irony is that the inside of Rolf’s looks like an outdoor café. It’s the Bavarian Forest with fake oak leaves, and a choice of table or booth.

Still, it’s a place for the cold months, even without the wursts and potatoes; other entrées include beef stew, grilled rib eye, roast pork loin, and braised chicken leg. Then again, there’s baked tilapia, sautéed salmon, and rainbow trout, along with Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier. On tap.

And peace and quiet.

Yes, that's a person at the end of the bar.

Rolf’s is the kind of place that seems quiet even when it’s noisy. The clientele is mature, the music is soft, and there’s no TV. “I don’t want any bickering here over what channel to put on,” Bob says. “People come in here to eat dinner, and it would interrupt their conversation.”

That’s also why the German theme ends with the menu and the oak leaves. There’s no oompah band playing beer songs and Bavarian marches. The staff is not clothed in dirndls, trachten socks, and lederhosen. “It’s not all that necessary,” Bob says. “Unless you’re at Disney World.”

When Rolf’s debuted, however, there was no Disney World. So for a while its founder, Rolf Hoffman, picked up the slack. He opened in 1968 with theme detail Bob calls “hardcore.” Rolf died in 1981. Bob took over with a partner, Ben House.

Ben died in 1996, and Bob has run things since. He keeps feeding the Christmas display, which now threatens the ones on Fifth Avenue. In summer, he still has his regulars. And he has some free time.

He cleans.

He changes the oak leaves.

He keeps your wiener schnitzel warm.

Spread out at Rolf’s German Restaurant, 281 Third Avenue, at 22nd Street, in Manhattan.