Old Stein Inn: Charred but not out

Regulars in mourning, owners aiming to rebuild after fire guts beloved Old Stein Inn

The couple was sound asleep in the early-morning darkness when the telephone rang, jarring them to consciousness.

"Do you still own the Old Stein Inn?" the caller asked in an urgent tone. "Have you seen what's going on?"

Mike and Beth Selinger hadn't, but when they bundled themselves up for the 6 a.m. chill of Dec. 31 and raced to the top of the hill near their Edgewater home, they soon found out.

It was his parents' dreams and their own, not to mention 28 years of Gemütlichkeit and memories, going up in smoke.

Flames leapt from the rear of the Old Stein, a German restaurant founded by Selinger's parents in 1983. Emergency vehicles and firefighters surrounded the 120-year-old structure, blasting it with water from high-powered hoses.

And as Mike Selinger, the boss and brains of the outfit, stood there, his insides felt "like a washing machine on the third cycle," he says.

"In the best of times, running a restaurant is a form of controlled chaos," he said on an icy morning three days later. "[A fire] takes things to a whole different plane. There's absolutely nothing you can do."

No one was hurt in the blaze, which firefighters extinguished by about 8 a.m., but not before it caused an estimated $550,000 in damage. The Selingers are covered by insurance.

But the place that draws regulars from as far away as Virginia and Western Maryland will be shuttered until the spring at the earliest, its staff out of work, as the owners navigate the tangled rebuilding process.

If nothing else, Beth Selinger says, the fire has given her and her husband a rare chance to savor what the eatery to which they devote their lives means to scores of others.

"As soon as word got out, we were inundated by people calling, e-mailing, stopping by to help," says Selinger, who hopes to have the place up and running before the summer. "People have used words like 'historic' and 'iconic.' The support has been humbling. If it weren't for that, I'm not sure where we'd be right now."

Regulars

Ask guests or staffers what's so special about "the Stein," as many call the place, and similar themes emerge.

It's more than a restaurant. It's a kind of home away from home, they say.

And in an age when franchise eateries offer a "cookie-cutter" experience — and often go out of business before long — it radiates an enduring uniqueness.

It can take years — even generations — to create such an establishment.

"Come to the Old Stein, and you feel as if you've put on a warm coat in the middle of winter," says Tom Eilenberg, who discovered the place in 1984 and has gone there at least once a week since. "It's impossible to fake that kind of atmosphere."

The story of the place began, in fact, about 60 years ago, in the German state of Rheinland Pfalz, where Mike Selinger's parents, Karl and Ursula, met, were married and found themselves planning a new life together.

Having witnessed the atrocities of World War II, they hoped to move to the United States to start afresh — and to create a restaurant that served German food and culture.

Like preparing a good meal, the process took a while. The Selingers moved to Maryland in the late 1950s, worked a succession of jobs in and around Anne Arundel County, and after about 20 years had saved enough to buy the old tavern on West Central Road in Edgewater.

The sturdy A-frame was already historic. It had been built as a private home in the 1890s, only to be converted into a general store, then the first gas station in southern Anne Arundel. The elder Selingers hung up their shingle — actually, a sign that still bears a crest that reads "Old Stein Inn" — in 1983.

With Karl as chef and manager, Ursula as hostess and bookkeeper, they crafted a menu that included German breads, sausages and beers, served three meals a day and hired wait staff who got to know customers by their first names, often staying on for years.

The atmosphere drew a growing clientele, especially among servicepeople and Germanophiles.

"I'd been in the Army in Bavaria for three years, and I was homesick for the country," says Eilenberg, a part-time federal government employee who lives in Annapolis. While there, "we used to love just heading out in any direction, knowing there would be a really nice Gasthaus [guest house] to find — immaculately clean, reasonably priced, a place with simple, well-prepared food. As soon as I walked into the Old Stein, I felt that kind of atmosphere."

Eilenberg and his family soon got to know the 30 or so others who went weekly or more, bonding at communal tables over sturdy meals and cold brew.

The group included Carla Duls, a retired county schoolteacher, and her husband, Jim, a technician at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, who came to try the fare in 1997, fell in love with little touches (the tin ceiling and mounted deer heads were favorites) and ended up befriending regulars and staff members like Susan Belden.