Frankford Hall Gets A (New) Opening Date


For those of you out there who’d already marked down May 13 as the day to pull on the lederhosen and dust off that Tyrolean hat for the debut of Frankford Hall–Stephen Starr’s dive into the sudden beer garden fad that has seized this city–I have some bad news. Releases have now gone out from Starr HQ saying that the opening has been pushed back a week and that now Frankford Hall won’t be unlocking the doors until the 17th.

So why the delay? Well, for starters, restaurant openings are always delayed. Or almost always, anyhow. It’s actually more unusual for a restaurant to make its date than to have it pushed. And when you’re talking about opening a place as big as Frankford Hall (which will have three bars, two ping pong tables, nine taps, a walk-up counter with a menu full of pretzels, schnitzel, whole rotisserie chickens  and wursts of all varieties, and seating for 400–with 160 seats inside and 240 more in the tree-shaded courtyard), the fact that the estimates came in within a week of reality is pretty good. According to reps for Starr, it’s nothing more nefarious than simple construction delays that are forcing the new date, and even the May 17 opening, though fairly firm, is “not super set in stone.”

But if you absolutely must get to a biergarten immediately (like you’ve got one of those Medic-Alert bracelets and it says “Administer .5 litres Franziskaner immediately. Repeat as necessary”),  and just can’t wait for Starr’s contractors to get their shit together, there’s always Hop Angel Brauhaus, which, as promised, did manage to get its (significantly smaller) biergarten open before the weekend. Prost!