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Ambience cleveland2/1/2024 ![]() Herman Pirchner passed away in February 2009 at the age of 101. The building on Euclid Avenue was razed in 1996 for a parking lot. Pirchner, however, forged on-opening a travel center in the Hanna Building and co-owning the Plain & Fancy Gourmet Shoppe at Severance Towne Center. A year later, Alpine Village reopened under a series of new owners, but the magic could not be replicated. In 1961, exactly thirty years after his “grosse eröffnung (grand opening),” Pirchner declared bankruptcy and the Internal Revenue Service padlocked the restaurant. Notables such as Fred Astaire, Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra also gathered upstairs at Pirchner’s private Eldorado Club. So did the celebrities who performed there: Cab Calloway, Pearl Bailey, Henny Youngman, Jimmy Durante and many others. Employing skills developed during his earlier career as a carnival strongman, Pirchner dazzled guests by delivering 50 or more steins of beer sliding across the floor on his hindquarters, a feat called "beer hefting" that Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” recognized. He gave rolling pins to new brides, led German singalongs and yodeled encouragement to folk dancers on a stage that would mechanically rise and fall. Sporting a Tyrolean cap and leather shorts, he served everything from goose liver to pig’s knuckles. On November 28, 1935, Pirchner moved downtown, opening Alpine Village in Playhouse Square. After that Pirchner never again was bothered by organized crime. He fought back with the help of Cleveland Public Safety Director Eliot Ness. They harassed Pirchner and set off stink bombs in the restaurant. Once again, the Mafia pushed for a piece of the alcohol pie. On the establishment’s second floor, Pirchner ran a speakeasy. He then opened the Alpine Shore Club (formerly Marigold Gardens) on East 185th Street and Lakeshore Boulevard in 1931. “How,” he once noted, “could a beverage as wholesome and innocent as beer be outlawed?” Pirchner’s brewing career came to an abrupt close when the Mafia tried to horn in on his operation. Then, in defiance of Prohibition, he began to brew beer with his brothers Otto and Karl. He soon was working two jobs, one in a pretzel factory and one as a bus boy. Herman Pirchner immigrated to the United States from Tyrol in western Austria in the mid-1920s. Pirchner’s “lusty yodelers,” om-pa-pa entertainment, ski-lodge-like bar, and waitstaff dressed in traditional leather breeches brought the Alps to downtown Cleveland. Inspired by Pirchner’s childhood home in the Austrian Alps, the restaurant featured Tyrolean décor, mountain scenes and murals of Bavarian peasant life. Looking for a place to grab a stein of beer and show off your new lederhosen? Herman Pirchner’s Alpine Village Theatrical Bar and Restaurant, located at 1614 Euclid Avenue (directly across the street from the Palace Theater) was the place to do it.
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