You see burrowed brows, yapping mouths and jolly faces on all in Der Rathskeller when you walk through the back-bent archway entrance. For years, Der Rathskeller has been home to students of intellect, chaps of discourse, and diverse drinkers of beer (as Der Rathskeller was the first union to serve beer at a public university).
Opened in 1928, Der Rathskeller established itself as a town hall center for the men at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It wasn’t until 1937 that women could enter Der Rathskeller, but even then there were time restrictions for when women could be there. Continuously morphing since, Der Rathskeller accepts the ever changing culture of not only the Madison community, but all who come through and stop in for a brew or a Bavarian pretzel.
When you enter Der Rathskeller, often referred to simply as “the Rat,” you enter a different atmosphere, containing history of conversation, spilled beverages, and burnt out neurons from students studying and ruminating with one another.
To enter this atmosphere, there’s no door; there are only archways. It seems fair Der Rathskeller’s parameters comprise of archway after archway because you’re not merely entering a new room; you’re entering something larger and more important.
While the edges of each archway contain slim colorful designs, 50 shades of beige and a bit of blood-crusted red coat the rest of the Rat. The lighting of the red-shaded chandeliers makes the room and the artwork in it appear both friendly and private.
Artwork of simple, silly, yet careful design imprints the open wall spaces separating each archway. Each art piece represents a main extracurricular activity of students, such as government, journalism, music, drama, athletics and so on.
As diverse as the activities and art, so too are those who visit the Rat. The Rat has become a place for people dressed to the nines and others to the zeros. It is now a hub for the astute and the nonchalant. You can hear asinine conversation to the right of your table and sophisticated political discourse to the left. The Rat’s archways have extended their arms to people of all backgrounds, circumstances, and educations.
It’s not uncommon for the Rat to exceed its maximum seating capacity, which reads 525 on a sign above the condiments bar. You only need to visit on the weekend or during a night a live band takes the stage to see an infested, crowded Rat. With that many people, it’s surprising the Bavarian steins held behind a glass wall on the North side of the Rat don’t tip over from the constant stampede of people. However, some objects aren’t as fortunate.
In the Rat everything is old, cracked and weathered, especially the chairs if you find yourself fortunate enough to find one unoccupied in the evening. Despite their design containing angled legs – so to make it more difficult to tip over – you can see and feel the dents and scrapes of having been tipped over again and again. No design can save them from the wrath of the crowd that a live band attracts or of a heated conversation that exceeds boiling point.
Some conversations have apparently been so heated the steam from them melted the glue holding the tile to the ceiling. Chunks of tile are missing throughout the ceiling of the Rat, peculiarly above tables that only seat two.
The tables too, when you float your fingers across their surfaces, make you wonder of the wars they’ve survived, and the tattoos, the engravings they have and how they got them.
Could one have been so bored in the Rat to engrave only lines, not words into the table? What made those who carved warnings into the table do so? What knowledge is lost on the tables from those engraving over the scripture of another? There’s history on the tables, but there’s no way of absorbing it; you can only feel that it’s there.
While the writing on the tables may be indecipherable, the writing on the Rat’s entrance is clear to all who can read German (or who can read the English translation on a sign to the left of the entranceway). The text, written in an old German-Gothic style, reminds people they are entering a new world of jubilation. The writing above the archway entrance reads, “lassen Sie Ihre Sorgen außerhalb,” or, in English, “leave your cares outside.”
Stay Positive & If You’re Ever In Madison, Send Me An Email, We Can Meet At The Rat
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