"At New Year's Eve, December 31, the Körpricher Restaurant Birkenhof is always ready. We say goodbye to retirement with a laughing and a crying eye, says owner Carmen Grüneisen-Birk. For 50 years, the 67-year-old learned hotel and restaurant woman has been holding the gastronomic company together with her 72-year-old husband Josef Grüneisen. Jof , as the guests call him, is active from the outset as a responsible cook in the restaurant in Lebacher Straße. Since the opening in 1973 the Birkenhof has been very popular. Guests from the entire Saarland and beyond will appreciate the good cuisine and the cosy ambience of the best guided dining room. In the past decades, many weddings and family celebrations took place. As a reason for the closure at the end of the year, the owner couple referred to their age and personal health-related aspects. At the same time, the two regret not to have found suitable successors for their place despite intensive search. For us it is now time to stop to enjoy the rest of our lives, the restaurant manager explains. In the last few decades, we had hardly any other time than to take care of our guests and the company, reports green iron. The couple had split up the work. Carmen was the good soul of the restaurant and took care of the decoration, guest care and reservations, and she organized the menu meetings, says Jof. In all these years, together with up to four employees in the kitchen, he was responsible for preparing food. Over the last 50 years, green iron has successfully trained ten trainees to cooks. The fact that the Birkenhofal's popular restaurant will close forever is a great loss for the gastronomy in our community, regrets the Körpricher Oswald Kriebs. For me, it is a real shot in the heart that our tribal locus, in which we married in 1975, will soon cease to exist, says Bernd Wax from Körprich. I deeply regret the fire of my absolute favorite restaurant, says Kurt Adam from Neuforweiler. The 80-year-old was the mayor of the municipality of Nalbach from 1985 to 2003 and is still with his wife's regular guest at the Birkenhof. The couple, who has been married since 1975 and has an adult son, thanks all the guests, many of whom have been loyal to Lolal for decades. The two of them are also obliged to thank their staff. Without our diligent employees, we could not have maintained the high standards of quality for our restaurant permanently, says Grüneisen-Birk. For example, Waltraud Kleber has been working as a service force in the Birkenhof for over 40 years. We had a strenuous but also successful and beautiful working life, says Restaurantchef Grüneisen-Birk. She will be looking for a new hobby in the future, and her husband Jof wants to hike more and train in the gym. (Extract SZ from 29.12. 22)"
