Der Rheinlander, the 53-year-old Northeast Portland German restaurant, will close early next year, the restaurant confirmed.
Guten Foods, which owns the Rose City Park restaurant as well as German restaurant chain Gustav's, sold Der Rheinlander's distinctive Northeast Sandy Boulevard building to Venerable Properties, the company responsible for redeveloping Washington High School into Revolution Hall, among other projects.
The restaurant will stay open until early 2017. After the closure, employees will be offered new jobs at Gustav's in Portland, Tigard, Clackamas, Vancouver, Keizer and a still-in-development Cedar Hills Crossing location planned for late next year.
The Rose City Park restaurant was founded in 1963 by chef Horst Mager, a native of Wiesbaden, Germany, who would later host an early and long-running cooking show on KOIN TV. Together with his daughter, Suzeanne Mager, the duo opened the first Gustav's -- a spinoff of Der Rheinlander's adjacent beer garden -- in 1994.
"This decision didn't happen overnight; we've been discussing it for a long time," Suzeanne Mager said in a statement. "I have bittersweet feelings about it, of course. But I feel it's the right thing to do, especially considering today's Portland food scene. It has been evolving, and so must we."
Der Rheinlander will remain open until "at least December 31" at 5035 N.E. Sandy Blvd.
-- Michael Russell
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