{"id":137748,"date":"2020-12-18T18:36:40","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T15:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/shut-down-by-coronavirus-berlin-restaurant-opens-for-homeless\/"},"modified":"2020-12-18T18:36:40","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T15:36:40","slug":"shut-down-by-coronavirus-berlin-restaurant-opens-for-homeless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/shut-down-by-coronavirus-berlin-restaurant-opens-for-homeless\/","title":{"rendered":"#Shut down by coronavirus, Berlin restaurant opens for homeless"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Shut down by coronavirus, Berlin restaurant opens for homeless<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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BERLIN \u2014 The coronavirus pandemic hasn\u2019t made life on the streets of Berlin any easier for Kaspars Breidaks.<\/p>\n

For three months, the 43-year-old Latvian has faced homeless shelters operating at reduced capacity so that people can be kept at a safe distance from one another. And with fewer Berliners going outdoors, it\u2019s much harder to raise money by panhandling or collecting bottles to sell for recycling.<\/p>\n

But on a chilly winter morning this week Breidaks found himself with a free hot meal and a place to warm up, after the German capital\u2019s biggest restaurant, the Hofbraeu Berlin \u2014 itself closed down due to coronavirus lockdown restrictions \u2014 shifted gears to help the homeless.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther homeless people at the train station told me about this place,\u201d Breidaks said, removing a furry black hat with long ear flaps as he sat on a bench in the warm, spacious beer hall near Berlin\u2019s landmark Alexanderplatz square. \u201cI came here for hot soup.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a restaurant employee who volunteers at a shelter who proposed opening up the shuttered Bavarian-style beer hall \u2014 patterned after the famous Munich establishment of the same name \u2014 to the homeless.<\/p>\n

It was a clear win-win proposition, said Hofbraeu manager Bjoern Schwarz. As well as helping out the homeless during tough times the city-funded project also gives needed work to employees \u2014 and provides the restaurant with welcome income.<\/p>\n

In cooperation with the city and two welfare organizations, the restaurant quickly developed a concept to take in up to 150 homeless people in two shifts every day until the end of the winter, and started serving meals on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only a small number compared with the 3,000 restaurant guests, primarily tourists, who would pack the establishment during good times. But the spacious halls have proved perfectly suited to bring in the homeless and give them each plenty of space to avoid infections.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally, during Christmas time, we would have many groups here for Christmas parties and then we\u2019d serve pork knuckles, half a duck or goose \u2026 but not at the moment,\u201d said Schwarz. \u201cWe\u2019re still doing delivery, but obviously that\u2019s only a drop in the bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to serving food and non-alcoholic drinks and offering the warmth of indoors, the restaurant provides its bathrooms for the homeless to wash up, and the GEBEWO and Berlin Kaeltehilfe relief groups have workers on hand to provide counseling and new clothes, if needed.<\/p>\n

\"The
The entrance sign of Hofbraeu Berlin is seen in front of Berlin\u2019s biggest restaurant, with the television tower in the background in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. <\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For its new clientele, the restaurant opened a second-floor, wooden-decorated hall, and put up 40 long tables.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll offer them something different from the regular soup kitchen food \u2014 real dishes on porcelain plates, with different sides, we\u2019ll try to offer Christmas-style dishes with lot of flavors,\u201d Schwarz said.<\/p>\n

Breidaks came to Germany three months ago looking for work. But he says a promised meat factory job never materialized and he ended up on the streets of Berlin begging for the money needed to replace a stolen passport and buy a bus ticket back home.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s one of an estimated 2,000 to 12,000 people who remain homeless in this city of 3.6 million, even after another 34,000 were put up in community shelters, hostels and apartments by social<\/a> services and private welfare groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe corona pandemic has seriously worsened the situation for homeless people, they live in very precarious conditions,\u201d said Elke Breitenbach, the Berlin state government\u2019s senator for social issues, whose department supports the restaurant-turned-shelter financially.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have enough to eat and when it\u2019s cold they must have places to warm up,\u201d Breitenbach added.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the first shivering group that entered the Hofbraeu along with Breidaks were served either Thuringia-style bratwurst with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and onion sauce, or a vegetarian stew with potatoes, zucchini, bell pepper and carrots. For dessert there was app<\/a>le strudel with vanilla sauce.<\/p>\n

For Breidaks, that was more than he had expected after spending a night with sub-zero temperatures huddled up next to the walls of a big department store on Alexanderplatz.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I need is hot soup,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, God willing, I will go back home in January.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Shut down by coronavirus, Berlin restaurant opens for homeless” BERLIN \u2014 The coronavirus pandemic hasn\u2019t made life on the streets of Berlin any easier for Kaspars Breidaks. For three months, the 43-year-old Latvian has faced homeless shelters operating at reduced capacity so that people can be kept at a safe distance from one another. And…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/12\/berlin-5.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[86955,82827,43905,22512],"class_list":["post-137748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-12-18-20","tag-berlin","tag-germany","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}