You don't just shake off 38 years of Stadtlander. I speak to Teddy on her very last day as owner of Stadtlander in the Poelestraat in Stad. She is restless because she has had a very busy period with the completion of the sale. She was manager there for eight years, owner for the last 30 years. And now she has sold it. She quits. She only has to count the stock and then her time is over. The end of an era.
'Bar owners with a big belly and a cigarette in their mouth'
Teddy used to work at Salle a Manger when her boss Citylander bought, she herself was studying pedagogy at the time. At that time she did not yet have the ambition to continue in the hospitality industry, or at least, she had agreed with herself not to 'get stuck in it'. That's how she tells. She resisted. In their own words because it was still looked down upon at the time. 'In that period you often had bar owners who were alcoholics, with such a big belly and a cigarette in their mouth,' says Teddy. 'That was really the image of the hospitality industry at the time'.
One of the first eateries in the Netherlands
At a certain point she could no longer ignore it and accepted that the hospitality industry was the common thread through her life. She continues: 'Then I stopped my studies, got my catering papers and became a manager at Stadtlander.'
'We were one of the first eateries in Groningen, perhaps in the whole of the Netherlands,' says Teddy proudly. 'Eating and drinking at the same time, you hardly saw that anywhere back then. That was really new. You used to have a café or a restaurant, but this concept merged that. It made eating out really more accessible.'
Vegetarian daily snack
Right from the start, the Stadtlander menu also included vegetarian daily snacks. Which was pretty progressive for the time. 'Furthermore satay, steak and plate service,' says Teddy. 'But you could also get cordon bleu or schnitzel from us.' although Citylander is basically still the same, a few things have changed in those 38 years. 'The menu is a bit more extensive because people really eat out more and more extensively. But we are also very clearly a café,' she continues. 'On Fridays and Saturdays, after nine or ten o'clock, we really are a café.'
And that is also the place where Teddy feels most at home. All those years she mainly worked behind the bar. And there, too, things have really changed compared to 38 years ago. 'Now you have a lot more choice in beer, a lot more specialty beers too,' she says. 'I used to have two Heineken taps, so the two of you stood next to each other at the same time tapping into those stacking glasses. You don't see that at all now. You used to walk through the store with pilsner glasses stacked several meters high, and they hung all the way over your shoulder.'
Entertainment center paved
Working for 38 years in the middle of the entertainment center of Stad. Has that also changed? 'You can tell it's a bit hardened these days,' says Teddy. 'That's why most businesses also have doormen. And I sometimes hear stories from my staff. But the other day I was working on a Saturday night myself and then I thought: 'Oh my god, what's going on here? How drunk everyone is!' But yes, that was also the case in the past, now I am of course older myself. Nowadays many other means are used, such as pills. But on the other hand, they weren't sweethearts in the past either, I think that's nonsense to say.'
Life after Stadtlander
What are Teddy's plans? What will she do with the seas of time she now has after selling her own business. "I really have no idea yet," she says. 'Maybe I'll go back to work, but I don't know at all at the moment.' What she does know is that she will first go for a breath of fresh air with her dog on Texel. "And then I'll see further," she concludes.