When Stephan Ullrich announced in November 2019 that he would have to close his restaurant, many felt it was a turning point.

They simply couldn't imagine Frankfurt without “Mother Ernst”, said regular guests at the time, that sounded believable, not pathetic.

Ullrich now has good news for everyone who has been a regular “Mother Ernst” visitor: You can be it again, next year, Ullrich has signed a lease for a currently vacant restaurant on Rahmhofstrasse (Schillerpassage).

“It was difficult, it took a long time, but now it's going to be very nice,” he says.

Jacqueline Vogt

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung, responsible for the Rhein-Main section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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The fact that the story of “Mother Ernst” has been interrupted after 80 years of existence fits in an unfortunate way with the restaurant itself and the city in which it stood for a long time.

In the inn on Alte Rothofstrasse within walking distance of Goethestrasse and the banking district, meat loaf and fried eggs were served, pork chops, potato salad and meatballs, beer and cider.

A classless society

The door was opened for the first time on October 1, 1938, by the butcher Richard Ernst and his wife Else. When the father died after the Second World War, daughter Marita got into the business. She renamed the "Gaststätte Ernst" to "Mother Ernst". She retired in 2000 and died in 2015. Her stepson Stephan Ullrich has been running the business since 2000. When the restaurant was 65 years old and all drinks were served for 65 cents to celebrate this birthday, Ullrich replied to the question of what the guests liked about "Mother Ernst": "That nothing has changed here."

But then a lot changed.

The owner sold the house for a new building with apartments and shops.

There was no more space for the bar in which office people and old men, tram drivers and investment bankers, lawyers and pensioners sat so peacefully as if they had been ordered for a film about the unifying force that can have a love of simple cuisine.

New address is "ideal"

“The only classless place that still exists in the city is the Waldstadion.” This is how one of the disappointed commented in an interview with the FAZ on the news of the imminent closure of “Mother Ernst” almost two years ago.

It was clear from the start that he wanted to continue and look for another location for his restaurant, says Ullrich. Offers were also made to him very quickly, for properties in Sachsenhausen, for example. But “Mother Ernst” just doesn't belong there. He calls the Rahmhofstrasse location, less than 500 meters from the former address, ideal. This is also because the rooms that were most recently a “Yours Australian Bar Branch” are more spacious than those of the former “Mother Ernst” and offer outdoor seating. "I often had capacity problems, which I can deal with now," says Ullrich. He had spoken to many landlords in the past few months, saying that the owners of the property he is now moving into have “been very accommodating” to him.

Ullrich cannot take the patina of the old "Mother Ernst", created by the countless hours spent there happily, with him, but he can transfer the frugal, rustic furnishing concept to the new location. The “Mother Ernst” of the year 2022, he says, will be new, but “definitely rustic”.