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The Student Prince Cafe & Fort Restaurant | |
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Restaurant information | |
Established | 1935 |
Owner(s) | Bean Restaurant Group Peter Picknelly |
Previous owner(s) | Rudi Scherff |
Head chef | Timothy Saxer |
Food type | German, American |
Dress code | Casual |
Street address | 8 Fort Street, Springfield, MA 01103 |
Reservations | Yes |
Other locations |
|
Website | www |
42°6′13.2″N72°35′37.1″W / 42.103667°N 72.593639°W The Student Prince Cafe & The Fort Restaurant, commonly referred to as The Student Prince, is a German restaurant, established in 1935, located at the corner of Fort and Main Street in the Metro Center neighborhood of Springfield, Massachusetts. The restaurant has been described by The Boston Globe and The New York Times as a city landmark, and has served German foods and beer in its grand hall for 89 years. [1] [2] Closing briefly from June until November 2014, the restaurant was purchased from longtime owner Rudi Scherff by Peter Picknelly of Peter Pan Bus Lines and Andy Yee, of the former Hu Ke Lau restaurant, in an agreement making them general partners, with Scherff remaining "the face of Student Prince". [2] [3] In 2008, Gourmet listed it among "20 Legendary American Restaurants", among the company of Galatoire's, Locke-Ober, and the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant. [4] [5]
The restaurant today stands on the site of John Pynchon's former estate, known as the "Old Fort", which was the first brick building when it was constructed in 1660, and the only building to survive the Siege of Springfield during King Philip's War. [6] [7] Traditional accounts of Springfield history say that the first city and county records were kept "in the chamber over the porch", and that Commissioner John Pynchon, and associates Elizur Holyoke, and Deacon Samuel Chapin held their court in the parlor before audiences of townsfolk. Toward midnight on a night in October 1675, every room of the house was filled with Springfield's men, women, and children as tribesmen burned every other dwelling to the ground; until the end of the siege it remained the only safehouse in the settlement. Following the rebuilding of Springfield, the homestead, with walls described as more than one foot thick, remained in the Pynchon family until it was razed in 1831 for a "more modern edifice". Today both in the main entrance and at the exterior of the restaurant historical plaques mark the site, and it was for this structure that the establishment lends half of its name, "The Fort Restaurant". [8]
On September 24, 1935, Paul Schoeder, a German immigrant from Spremberg active in Springfield's turnverein, [9] opened the Student Prince Cafe & Tap Room at 8 Fort Street in the storefront of a former shoe store. [10] At the time of the restaurant's opening, the namesake operetta, The Student Prince , was remarkably popular in Springfield, with annual performances at the Court Square Theater during ten years prior to the establishment's opening, [11] and leading man Howard Marsh making his radio debut as Prince Karl on WTIC in neighboring Hartford. [12] Schoeder would place a two-column ad in the Springfield Republican on opening day which billed the restaurant as "A bit of the charm of the Old World with the modernity of the New...serving German food and delicatessen". [13] With the Springfield newspapers' offices in the same block, the restaurant quickly became a regular meeting place for reporters and politicians such as Edward Boland and Larry O'Brien. [10]
After several years of good business, on February 18, 1946, Schoeder and his business partner Miss Erna Sievers opened The Fort Dining Room, featuring mahogany woodwork and commissioned stained glass made by German artisans from New Jersey, depicting scenes from the restaurant's operetta namesake The Student Prince , Heidelberg, and Springfield history. [14] [15] The restaurant over the years has amassed a collection of more than 1,000 steins and an array of bottle openers and artwork which adorn every one of its walls. [15] The expanded restaurant proved so successful that during the 1950s it was not uncommon for a large line to form at its door on a Thursday before 5 pm, and from 1935 until 1960 the restaurant had to expand its kitchen five times and build a second preparatory kitchen in its basement, larger than its entire seating area. [10] [16]
By the 1960s the restaurant's reputation had spread beyond the region and it would host such celebrities as Bonanza lead Lorne Greene, John F. Kennedy, Liberace, Carol Lawrence, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Robert Goulet, and in later decades André the Giant. [10] According to former owner Rudi Scherff, a typical pre-match meal for André when at the venue included "two steins of beer, two bottles of fruit wine, and two or three full meals." [2] For decades The Student Prince has hosted annual Bockbierfest, Maifest, Oktoberfest and Christmas caroling festivities, [17] as well as many graduation parties, weddings, labor, and political meetings. [2] Governor Charlie Baker, Congressman Richard Neal, Mayor Domenic Sarno, and nearly every post-WWII mayor of Springfield of both major parties has held some form of fundraiser or celebration at the venue, including past statewide meetings of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. [18] [2] [19]
Schoeder died in 1948, and following Sievers' death in 1961, she bequeathed her shares of the business to be split between managers Rupprecht Scherff and Grete Silinski. [9] [20] On July 26, 1968, Scherff was presented a "Restaurant of the Year" Award from the Massachusetts Restaurant Association for his work to implement a new apprentice training program from the US Department of Labor, providing underprivileged trainees with apprenticeship chef's training with pay. [21] This was but one of many examples of Scherff's engagement in city civic life, later that year he would preside as toastmaster of a charitable fundraiser by the Western Massachusetts Cafe Owners Association, celebrating the 35th anniversary of the 21st Amendment of the US Constitution which had ended Prohibition. [22] On November 8, 1984, Springfield Mayor Richard Neal issued a proclamation that that date was "Rupprecht Scherff Day", honoring the restaurant's owner for having resided in the United States for 50 years, after immigrating from Germany. [23] As a representative in the US Congress, Neal would also officially read an abridged history of the restaurant submitted to the Congressional Record on October 26, 1995. [24] Silinshi would cash out on her shares in 1971 as a cash sum and pension, but Scherff, who had begun working at the restaurant in 1949, would spend the rest of his life operating the restaurant, until it was given to his children after his death in 1996 at the age of 82. [25]
In 2010 the restaurant celebrated its 75th anniversary as part of a joint Germanic-Hispanic Oktoberfest, with New England Farm Workers Council president Heriberto Flores and Mayor Domenic Sarno christening the ceremony, tapping a keg of Spaten. [25]
In the late 1990s and 2000s, the restaurant saw a gradual decline in business mirroring Springfield's own dwindling economy and downtown base. By 2014, Rudi Scherff reported the restaurant had accrued $800,000 in debt, and in June of that year the restaurant closed. Local owner of Peter Pan Bus Lines Peter Picknelly, and restaurateur Andy Yee of Bean Group Restaurants, best known for Chicopee's former Hu Ke Lau restaurant, approached the Scherff family and worked out an agreement that would allow them to keep the property but removed them from day-to-day operations. As part of this agreement the Scherff family would keep the collection of steins, openers, stained glass windows, and other art, renting them to the restaurant partners for $100 a year; including terms for their maintenance and cleaning. [15] The menu was also modernized to an extant, keeping many popular dishes, but removing some traditional fare like hasenpfeffer and schweinshaxe from the regular menu, with the addition of salads and vegetarian options to reflect changing diner tastes. Following $750,000 of renovations, the restaurant reopened on the day before Thanksgiving, November 26, 2014. [2]
Over the decades the restaurant has been featured as a destination in Springfield in several publications including The New York Times, [1] and The Boston Globe. Globe food critic Anthony Spinazzola would make a point of reviewing the restaurant twice in the 1970s, saying "one of the things uniquely unfair about reviewing restaurants is that one seldom gets back to a place he really enjoys", making an exception for The Student Prince, he would describe it in a 1975 review as "a restaurant I consider among the best in the state." [26] [27] Peter B. Wolf, who was chef during Spinazzola's reviews, serving from 1964 to 1980, would praise the restaurant in 2008 as a place he still frequented as a patron, despite having not worked for the venue in any capacity in nearly 30 years. [28]
In 2008, Gourmet would list The Student Prince among "20 Legendary American Restaurants" called "Time's Tables", in the magazine's last annual "Restaurant Issue". Food critic Ruth Reichl and the editorial staff spent the previous year reviewing longstanding restaurants that had "stood the test of time and still serve great food." In addition to The Student Prince, included among the list were a number of restaurants from around the United States such as New Orleans' Galatoire's, Joe's Stone Crab in Miami Beach, Boston's Locke-Ober, New York's 21 Club, and the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant. [4] [5]
The following year the restaurant placed 21 among Lonely Planet and Singha's reader's choice list for the "world's great bars", the only bar appearing in the top 25 for that year from the United States. [29] [30] In 2014, the bar was named among 15 featured in an Editor's Choice list on travel and food website Thrillist . [31] In 2021, it was also featured in Harvard Magazine . [32] In 2022 it was featured on NESN's Wicked Bites.
A fictionalized version of the restaurant is portrayed in the 2007 American novel An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. [33] Some key difference of artistic license include it being described as owned and operated by a Goerman family rather than the Scherffs, and being in an alley off of Court Square, when in reality Fort Street is about 5 blocks from that location. [34]
Springfield is the most populous city in and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern Mill River. At the 2020 census, the city's population was 155,929, making it the third most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the fourth most populous city in New England after Boston, Worcester, and Providence. Metropolitan Springfield, as one of two metropolitan areas in Massachusetts, had a population of 699,162 in 2020.
The Pioneer Valley is the colloquial and promotional name for the portion of the Connecticut River Valley that is in Massachusetts in the United States. It is generally taken to comprise the three counties of Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin. The lower Pioneer Valley corresponds to the Springfield, Massachusetts metropolitan area, the region's urban center, and the seat of Hampden County. The upper Pioneer Valley region includes the smaller cities of Northampton and Greenfield, the county seats of Hampshire and Franklin counties, respectively.
Western Massachusetts, known colloquially as "western Mass," is a region in Massachusetts, one of the six U.S. states that make up the New England region of the United States. Western Massachusetts has diverse topography; 22 colleges and universities including UMass in Amherst, MA, with approximately 100,000 students; and such institutions as Tanglewood, the Springfield Armory, and Jacob's Pillow.
William Pynchon was an English colonist and fur trader in North America best known as the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts. He was also a colonial treasurer, original patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the iconoclastic author of the New World's first banned book.
Springfield Union Station is a train and bus station in the Metro Center area of Springfield, Massachusetts. Constructed in 1926, Springfield Union Station is the fifth-busiest Amtrak station in the Commonwealth, and the busiest outside of Greater Boston.
South Hadley High School is a secondary school in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States, for students in grades 9–12. The school has a student population of just over 500. The school's name is frequently referred to as "SHHS".
Holyoke City Hall is the historic city hall of Holyoke, Massachusetts. It is located at 536 Dwight Street, on the south east corner of High Street and Dwight Street. Serving both as the city administrative center and a public timepiece for the industrial city's workers, construction began on the Gothic Revival structure in 1871 to a design by architect Charles B. Atwood. Difficulties and delays in construction were compounded by Atwood's failure to deliver updated drawings in a timely manner, and the design work was turned over to Henry F. Kilburn in 1874. The building was completed two years later at a cost of $500,000. It has housed city offices since then.
Metro Center is the original colonial settlement of Springfield, Massachusetts, located beside a bend in the Connecticut River. As of 2019, Metro Center features a majority of Western Massachusetts' most important cultural, business, and civic venues. Metro Center includes Springfield's Central Business District, its Club Quarter, its government center, its convention headquarters, and in recent years, it has become an increasingly popular residential district, especially among young professionals, empty-nesters, and creative types, with a population of approximately 7,000 (2010.)
The siege of Springfield was a siege of the colonial New England settlement of Springfield in 1675 by Native Americans during King Philip's War. Springfield was the second colonial settlement in New England to be burned to the ground during the war, following Providence Plantations. King Philip's War remains, per capita, the bloodiest war in American history.
The history of Springfield, Massachusetts dates back to the colonial period, when it was founded in 1636 as Agawam Plantation, named after a nearby village of Algonkian-speaking Native Americans. It was the northernmost settlement of the Connecticut Colony. The settlement defected from Connecticut after four years, however, later joining forces with the coastal Massachusetts Bay Colony. The town changed its name to Springfield, and changed the political boundaries among what later became the states of New England. The decision to establish a settlement sprang in large part from its favorable geography, situated on a steep bluff overlooking the Connecticut River's confluence with three tributaries. It was a Native American crossroad for two major trade routes: Boston-to-Albany and New York City-to-Montreal. Springfield also sits on some of the northeastern United States' most fertile soil.
Holyoke High School is a public high school in Holyoke, Massachusetts, United States. Since 2015, the school, along with the district, has been in state receivership and through a series of changes in practices, such as innovative restorative justice disciplinary programs, has seen marked improvement in student retention and graduation rates. In the 2017-2018 school year Holyoke High received higher combined SAT scores than the average for schools in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield.
The Hilltop Steak House was an American restaurant located on Route 1 in Saugus, Massachusetts. Founded in 1961 by Frank Giuffrida, it was one of the busiest restaurants in the United States during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The Hilltop closed in 2013.
The City of Springfield, Massachusetts has two official symbols, and is also often represented by depictions of the Municipal Group as a de facto emblem of its government.
Churchill is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the south of the city center, adjacent to the downtown. Its name is a geographic portmanteau as the area was historically known as the Church Hill district prior to its extensive development in the early twentieth century. Located at the southwestern edge of the downtown grid, the area served as housing for mill workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and today contains 166 acres (67 ha) of mixed residential and commercial zoning, including a number of historical brick tenements as well as the headquarters of the Holyoke Housing Authority, Holyoke Senior Center, Churchill Homes public housing, and the Wistariahurst Museum.
Pynchon Park, also known as Hampden Park and League Park, was a sports venue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1853 by the Hampden Agricultural Society and was destroyed by fire in 1966.
Despite representing a significantly smaller population than their Irish, French, Polish, or Puerto Rican counterparts, in the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, German immigrants predominantly from Saxony and Rhineland played a significant economic, cultural, and political role in the history of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The influx of these immigrants can largely be attributed to a single mill and millworker complex, the Germania Woolen Mills, which formed the basis of the immigrant colony that would make the ward encompassing the South Holyoke neighborhood that with the highest German population per capita, in all of New England by 1875. Along with unionization efforts by the Irish community, Germans would also play a key role in the city and region's socialist labor movements as workers organized for higher pay and improved living conditions in the textile and paper mill economies.
From the beginning of the city's history as the western bank of Springfield, Irish families have resided in and contributed to the development of the civics and culture of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Among the first appellations given to the city were the handles "Ireland", "Ireland Parish", or "Ireland Depot", after the village was designated the 3rd Parish of West Springfield in 1786. Initially occupied by a mixture of Yankee English and Irish Protestant families, many of whom belonged to the Baptist community of Elmwood, from 1840 through 1870 the area saw a large influx of Irish Catholic workers, immigrants to the United States, initially from the exodus of the Great Famine. During that period Irish immigrants and their descendants comprised the largest demographic in Holyoke and built much of the early city's infrastructure, including the dams, canals, and factories. Facing early hardships from Anti-Irish sentiment, Holyoke's Irish would largely build the early labor movement of the city's textile and paper mills, and remained active in the national Irish nationalist and Gaelic revival movements of the United States, with the Holyoke Philo-Celtic Society being one of 13 signatory organizations creating the Gaelic League of America, an early 20th century American counterpart of Conradh na Gaeilge.
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 39,880 people, 15,361 households, and 9,329 families residing in the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The population density was 723.6/km2 (1,874/mi²). There were 16,384 housing units at an average density of 277.2/km2 (718.6/mi²).
After 79 years as a downtown landmark, the German restaurant had succumbed to a lackluster economy and the changing tastes of diners who no longer were attracted to the pig's knuckles and liver on its extensive Old World menu...Over the years, locals have shared the space with the famous, including John F. Kennedy, Liberace, and Andre the Giant, the late wrestler whose gastronomic feats are still recalled with wide-eyed wonder...Andre's prematch meal, Scherff said, would usually include two steins of beer, two bottles of fruit wine, and two or three full meals
The Restaurant Guide: "Time's Tables" (page 77). Gourmet's editors spent the past year selecting 20 legendary American restaurants that have stood the test of time and still serve great food: Giardina's, Greenwood, MS; Manago Hotel, Captain Cook, HI; Bright Star, Bessemer, AL; Gaido's Seafood Restaurant, Galveston, TX; The "21" Club, New York City; Sammy's Ye Old Cider Mill, Mendham, NJ; Galatoire's, New Orleans; The Student Prince, Springfield, MA; Joe T. Garcia's Mexican Restaurant, Fort Worth; El Charro Café, Tucson; Locke-Ober, Boston; Joe's Stone Crab, Miami Beach; Hyeholde Restaurant, Coraopolis, PA; Gene & Georgetti, Chicago; Musso & Frank Grill, Hollywood; The Lexington, St. Paul; Lawry's The Prime Rib, Beverly Hills; Maneki, Seattle; The Oyster Bar, New York City; and Tadich Grill, San Francisco
Rupprecht shows his assistant, Johannes, a merry scene from 'The Student Price' operetta which shows that 'Gemuethlichkeit' is always present here
Singha, the absolutely delish Thai beer sponsors the listing of "the world's best bars" for Lonely Planet. Here are the top bars of the moment, as selected by readers' votes....21-The Student Prince, Springfield, Massachusetts
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)Media related to The Student Prince (restaurant) at Wikimedia Commons
External media | |
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Images | |
Menu from 1964, showing some traditional fare of the period | |
Video | |
Student Prince Re-Opening, Connecting Point, WGBY-TV, November 17, 2014 | |
[Cinema verité of The Student Prince], prior to its closing and re-opening, May 17, 2010 |