It’s the “wurst” of times for iconic Queens German butchery Zum Stammtisch Pork Store.
The beloved deli, which for 14 years catered to Glendale’s dwindling German diaspora, will close its doors on March 1.
“For us, it’s sad,” Hans Lehner, Zum Stammtisch’s co-owner, told The Post. “We’d love to keep it going, but it just becomes a matter of numbers.
“Costs have been going up and up. … It’s hard to pass these prices on to customers.”
Lehner, 51, and his brother Werner have also run the adjoining Zum Stammtisch restaurant since 1993. Their father, John, a coppersmith, opened the Bavarian eatery in 1972 after emigrating from Germany in the 1950s.
In 2010, the brothers seized the opportunity to open the pork store next door after legendary neighborhood butcher Karl Ehmer shut his doors.
Zum Stammtisch, one of the Big Apple’s few surviving Bavarian beer halls and butchers, has long been a watering hole for both blue-collar Germans and Queens transplants. The store often attracted foot traffic from restaurant diners, who treated it like an “exit through the gift shop.”
But its customer base has thinned over the years.
“Honestly, since the pandemic, the base — the old Germans in the neighborhood — just aren’t as plentiful,” Lehner said. “We’re a niche market … but with price increases and everything else, it doesn’t work anymore.”
The pandemic was the final nail in the coffin, Lehner said.
“The pandemic helped us out tremendously because we were an essential business. But once the smoke cleared, there was just less of a customer base,” he added.
Celebrated German-Polish butcher Morscher’s Pork Store also closed last year, after decades in business due to skyrocketing rent.
In 2024, retail store closures hit a record 7,325 nationwide, according to Coresight Research. And that number is expected to double this year.
Like many restaurants across the city struggling with soaring costs, the pork store faced an unsustainable business model, heavily dependent on imported goods from Germany and Europe.
The pork store’s closure has alarmed Zum’s dining regulars, who worry the restaurant will follow suit.
“I want to preface everything with the fact that we’re doing great, we’re fine, we’re strong, and we’ll be here for many, many years to come,” Lehner said about the restaurant.
“But it’s like the old German saying, ‘everything has an end except the wurst — it has two.’ And this, unfortunately, is the end of the pork store.”
Inside the shop, customers browsed shelves lined with German beer, candy, salami, sauerkraut, red cabbage, German entertainment magazines and folk music CDs. The deli counter displayed an array of wursts.
“We make a wurst of the week — everything from mango habanero bratwurst to teriyaki bratwurst, Korean barbecue bratwurst,” Lehner boasted.
One of the pork store’s specialties, leberkäse — a German meatloaf made from ground pork, beef and bacon — then emerged from the oven, its savory aroma filling the shop. A deli worker sliced off a steaming hunk and offered it up.
Above the counter, a cheeky sign proclaimed its cult status: “Sex, drugs, and leberkäs!”
“It’s almost mandatory — everybody walks out with some leberkäse,” Lehner said.
A number of longtime customers, some who lined up to visit the store for the last time, waxed nostalgia about it last week.
“I’m very disappointed,” Vicki Breton, 69, told The Post. “This is one of the reasons we come here all the way from Brooklyn.”
Breton and her husband, Antonio, regulars for nearly 30 years, stocked up on his favorite dish.
“Schnitzel, what else?” Antonio Breton, 70, said, proudly holding a jar of German mustard shaped like a mini beer stein. “It’s excellent.”
The couple, who met while serving in the US Army in Germany in 1976, once lived in Glendale but moved to Brooklyn seven years ago.
It was “sad” to see the place go, retired firefighter Kenny Kresse said, after purchasing potato salad and bratwursts.
“I grew up in Ridgewood with the Germans, and there used to be more of these places,” Kresse, 57, told The Post. “I don’t know where to go after this.”
Kew Gardens resident John Metzler, a red cabbage devotee, was equally disheartened.
“When it comes to Christmas or special holidays, this store was amongst the best,” he said. “The neighborhood, which was once very German, Austrian, and even Italian, isn’t anymore. It’s a turning of a page.”
With that in mind, customers have been traveling hundreds of miles to pay homage.
“[We] had people drive up from South Carolina last week just to pick up a couple hundred dollars’ worth of stuff,” he said. “It’s funny. “Some ask, ‘what can we do?’
“It’s the new way of the world with brick-and-mortar stores. Stuff like this, you can’t get on Amazon.”
