One of Long Island’s oldest German restaurants, Oak Chalet in Bellmore, has been serving the hearty foods of\u00a0Southern Germany’s Bavaria region\u00a0since 1981. But owner\u00a0Gisela Wedel said after the death of her husband, Dieter Reinking, the family\u00a0plans to sell the business and close Jan. 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I had a very long run, and I would like to run it longer but at this time I’m 84 years old, so it’s time,” she said.<\/p>\n
Wedel’s entire extended family has been helping her run the restaurant since Reinking died in February.\u00a0But lately, Wedel said, it’s been very expensive to maintain the business and more difficult to find good help. Many of Oak Chalet’s employees have been working there for more than three decades, she said. And she’s hoping the new owners of the business will find a way to keep them on. Although she said, the spot\u00a0will probably not remain a German restaurant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Kasseler Rippchen, smoked pork chops served with french fries, at Oak Chalet in Bellmore. Credit: Daniel Brennan<\/p>\n
The stone building is known for its\u00a0Old World atmosphere and collection of Bavarian objects, like boot-shaped ceramic beer steins. The menu includes\u00a0wiener schnitzels, smoked pork chops with sauerbraten and red cabbage, bratwurst, smoked pork chops and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The restaurant, we built from scratch, my husband and I,” Wedel said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wedel added that she has been very busy with the outpouring of support that Oak Chalet\u00a0has received since word of the impending closure has gotten around. During a short\u00a0conversation, the phone could be heard ringing off the hook in the background.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n\tAndi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she\u2019ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Long Island’s oldest German restaurants, Oak Chalet in Bellmore, has been serving the hearty foods of\u00a0Southern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8695,8696,9,11,10,49,51,50,821],"class_list":{"0":"post-72323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-feedme","9":"tag-fmclose","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-new-york-state","14":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-state-news","16":"tag-restaurants"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}