Familiar faces fill Bavarian bunker

“Rathskeller” was traditionally the basement of the town hall in every town in Germany and Austria, and in 1948, Franklin Street received its own version in the form of a dark, cavernous eatery.

When the Danzigers, a family of Austrian immigrants, moved to Chapel Hill, they brought the tradition with them and created the Ramshead Rathskellar.

“Now, it’s as much a part of Chapel Hill and UNC as the Bell Tower or the Dean Dome,” said Carter Honeycutt, the restaurant’s manager.

Erwin Danziger was a pastry chef, and the family originally owned the Old World Gift Shop, situated above the basement where the restaurant resides.

The transition from gift shop to restaurant was natural, said Ian Scott, a bartender and occasional manager at the Rathskellar. “They served coffee and apple pie to the students who would study there. Eventually, they opened a restaurant in the basement.”

Eugene “Pop” Lyons, a server at “The Rat,” as it is often called, has been there since 1963. “You meet a lot of different people here,” he said. “But the employees, the atmosphere — it’s just like family here.”

Because of the Danzigers’ Austrian heritage, The Rat features traditional German decor, with dark wood paneling and barrel heads.

Each of the rooms of the restaurant is named — the Train Room, the Cave Room, the Circus Room, the Coop — for its unique decor or function. The Circus Room traces the Danzigers’ flight from Austria to Chapel Hill. The Coop was historically the room from which fried chicken was sold to waiting students in the alleyway on game days.

In the bar, students have marked the walls as their own. There are many jubilant scrawlings commemorating the NCAA men’s basketball championships in 1982, 1993 and 2005. Several make unflattering references to nearby rival Duke University.

“On game days, we’re just mobbed,” Scott said. “Football games, basketball games … it’s a lot of the alumni who come back, and they want to visit the restaurant they ate at when they were students.”

Scott said he thinks it’s the tradition of the establishment that keeps people coming to The Rat long after graduation. “They come back to see our old servers, like Pop and Linwood and Davis and Mitch, who have worked here for 30 or 40 years,” he said.

These waiters, and others who have since retired, are celebrated with caricatures on one wall.

Pop also said people return because of the history. “It started off, college kids would come here, but then they come back, and they bring their kids, and then they bring their kids,” he said.

Fred Hayes, a retired mechanic from Hillsborough, estimated that he has been coming to The Rat about once a week for 30 years.

“It feels like home,” Hayes said. “You generate friends, you get to know the staff, and it’s always the same.”

Hayes said he often orders the specials for which the restaurant is known — lasagna, gambler’s steak, or rare roast beef sandwiches.

The restaurant is also known for its Hot Apple Pie Louise, named after Louise Headen, who made the pies for The Rat longer than anyone can remember, Pop said.

The Danzigers also owned the Ranch House, on Airport Road, and the Zoom Zoom Room, once located across from Spanky’s, but only The Rat has survived, perhaps because of its central location.

“It’s an interesting setting, being a small business on Franklin Street,” Scott said. “We all try to help each other out. It’s a very cooperative atmosphere, and you can always get help.”

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