Vancouver’s ‘Alpen Club’ to sell off furniture and equipment ahead of planned redevelopment
Posted January 30, 2023 7:41 pm.
Last Updated January 31, 2023 1:57 pm.
It’s a little slice of Germany in East Van.
The Vancouver Alpen Club and the Deutsches Haus Restaurant have been serving up schnitzel and German culture for nearly eight decades. Able Auctions is selling off equipment and furniture from the long-time establishment to the highest bidder next week.
But, fear not. Alpen Club General Manager Lorenzo Lepore says they will be back.
“We’re actually auctioning off a lot of the things we’re not going to carry with us. We have a ton of memorabilia and member-related items that we will be bringing forward. That is not being auctioned off.”
Lepore notes some of these items have just reached the end of their cycle for the Alpen Club.
“You have to remember; the Alpen Club has been around almost 80 years. There’s a lot of stuff there that isn’t really keeping up with modern times. Things like dishes, kitchen equipment, those types to things, those will all be replaced.”
The club and the restaurant closed last year ahead of a planned redevelopment of their long-time home on Victoria Drive near East 33rd Avenue.
“We’re still waiting for the city’s final approval before we can demolish the building, so we’re a couple of months out,” Lapore explains. “Originally it was January 31st, but now it looks like it may be pushed back to February-March.”
“So, we figure once the building’s demolished and reconstructed, it’s going to take two years, so we’re looking at 2025.”
Lepore says the new building will be six storeys tall, with five of the floors set aside for rental housing and the main floor reserved for the club and the restaurant along with two levels of underground parking.
In the meantime, the club will maintain its usual programming away from home.
“We’re still going to be active over the next couple of years. We’re basically going into transition mode,” Lepore says. “We’ve moved our membership over to the Austria Vancouver Club [in Richmond]. We’re still actively going to be looking for members, we’re still going to be holding different events, and we’re still going to try to do our Oktoberfest.”
