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New owners taking over `The Stube’

Jeremy Heiman

The Wienerstube Restaurant, one of Aspen’s oldest eating establishments, is changing hands.

Gerhard Mayritsch, the owner and one of the founding partners, said the sale of the 35-year-old restaurant will become official Monday, Jan. 31. The buyers are two current Wienerstube employees, maitre d’ Horst Grilc and chef Thomas Jaggi.

The East Hyman Avenue restaurant, known simply as “the Stube” to loyal locals who have long made it a popular morning hangout, features Austrian cuisine and specializes in breakfast and lunch. It’s known for its homemade Viennese pastries and European-style sausages. “Wienerstube” means Viennese-style living room, Mayritsch said.



When Mayritsch and his partner, Helmut Schloffer, opened the original Stube in 1965, the two were both experienced chefs. They were from the Austrian town of Villach, near the Italian-Slovenian border, he said. The ski area of Bad Kleinkirchheim, home base of Olympic and World Cup skier Franz Klammer, is nearby.

But neither Mayritsch nor Schloffer knew much about the business aspects of running a restaurant. They just went ahead and did it, Mayritsch said.




The original Wienerstube was in the Aspen Grove on Cooper Avenue. Mayritsch and Schloffer moved the restaurant to its present location in the old Aspen post office building in 1985. Schloffer died in 1993.

As the restaurant’s new general manager, Grilc, an Austrian from the same region as Schloffer and Mayritsch, will take on the job of running the business, Mayritsch said. Jaggi, who is from Switzerland, will continue as head chef.

Mayritsch said he will be retiring after the sale is complete.