No false alarm here, people: Wedding kommt. By now the loyal inhabitants of the underdog district have stuck it out long enough to realise what’s missing… and then they’ve made it happen. Proprietress Jenni Werche opened Goldene Mitte for lack of a café and as of late, you can hold a birthday brunch, art exhibition or reading at the cosy vintage furniture shop offering lattes (€2.60) and baked goods (including their famed orange cake, €1.50).
Not far away, a 1960s (décor still present) theatre re-opened its doors in mid-September: Anne Lakeberg and Wiebke Wolter’s City Kino Wedding, much needed after last year’s close of Kino am Ufer, offers bargain-priced films (€6) twice monthly, including scary cult classics with a €1 shot of courage (aka vodka) on the side.
But it’s inside the homey Nussbreite, a Staropramen (€2.50) or two in hand, that you’ll really feel the pulse, especially as the singer-songwriter on the small corner stage leaps with a thud into the midst of his fixated audience. The bar/venue is the concept of eight mostly-bearded musician friends who just wanted a “warm and cosy place to make music and hang out” in the Kiez they call home. To the chagrin of their former Stammkneipe Kiki Sol, this is exactly what’s been going down since the beginning of October at open mics, acoustic concerts, jazz sessions and film evenings hosted Thursday through Sunday, “for now”. On any given night, you’ll see roughly two-thirds of the youthful collective in person, pouring whisky (€2-3.50) or giddily refilling bowls with their partial-namesake snack, while the rest hang on the wall in portrait form. One of them, Michael Landau, is personally responsible for the plethora of original artwork, including a cherub-like self-portrait and what he calls his “butt art”: a series of artistically rendered derrieres. It takes more than a little skin to win us over, Wedding, but we think you’re on the right track.
Originally published in issue #132, November 2014.
