Schork'ige Zeiten

From the old "Ratsstüble"
(Old Town Hall Inn)
to the Restaurant "Schiller" of our days

The history of the “Schiller” began as early as 1896, when Karl Reinhardt and his wife Wilhelmine acquired the restaurant  “Zum alten Ratsstüble” (Old Town Hall Inn), located just opposite Bietigheim’s town hall. Soon, the inn was strongly frequented  and well known for its good and plain dishes. When the “Ratsstüble” got swept away during the big fire of the old town in 1921,  the guests and friends of the Reinhardt family showed a lot of compassion, as proves an old article in the local newspaper.

In the year of the great fire, the inn-keepers’ son, Eugen Reinhardt and his wife Karoline, née Klink from Löchgau, moved into the house  on Marktplatz (Market Place), number 5, which offered them a butchery and an inn. Once again, the Schiller Inn (“Gasthaus zum Schiller”)  was soon to get well known, even far outside the town limits, for its plain but good cuisine and gracious hospitality.

Since 1958, their son Rudolf Reinhardt and his wife Marianne, née Junginger from Murrhardt, have run the “Schiller”.  After several interior and exterior restorations of the Marktplatz house they purchased a house at the vicinity in 1960.  This house was completely transformed and equipped with hotel rooms. Already back then, special importance was attached to the  guests’ comfort and well being.

When the owners’ youngest daughter Regine and her husband Burkhard Schork were back from their traveling years,  the historically protected building had just undergone its second complete renovation. Since 1988,  the fourth generation of the family-owner has now worked in Bietigheim’s “Schiller”, carefully transforming the house  as well as the menu. Today, not only does the “Schiller” attract its guests by traditionally well-known regional dishes  that are prepared freshly on a daily basis, but also by the so-called fine Swabian gourmet pleasures.

In “Schiller”, we have combined 4 generations of hospitality with modern professional thinking and doing. This will continue  to be an obliging heritage for the family of Regine and Burkhard Schork – we are pleased to serve our guests.

In its October 1996 edition, the Gourmet magazine (“Der Feinschmecker”) welcomed the hotel and restaurant “Schiller”,  under management of butcher master and chef Burkhard Schork and his wife Regine (née Reinhardt), amongst Germany’s best restaurants.

The years 2004/2005 are the sign of substantial renovation, that has started with rebuilding of the historical "Eiskeller" (Ice-Cellar) and finished out with the fitting up the completely new bedrooms according to the "Schiller's" literary themes.