After being closed for several months, the restaurant inside the Rio Grande Southern Hotel opened quietly Tuesday and started serving breakfasts and lunch.
And while there might be some new faces, one will look very familiar.
Rita Bergstrom, former owner and cook at The Old Germany Restaurant, has come out of retirement to cook again.
“I missed it,” Bergstrom said, while stirring some of her famous chicken and dumpling soup. “I cook at home all the time, but I tend to overcook,” she said of her restaurant-sized portions.
Susi Sieber, owner of the Rio Grande Southern Hotel said she is overjoyed to have Bergstrom cooking for her.
“She makes the best soup in the whole world,” said Sieber.
Bergstrom took over the Old Germany Restaurant after her husband’s death in 1998. She taught herself her husband’s recipes, most of which weren’t written down, and made up her own. She closed the restaurant in 2008 and went into retirement, but not before she promised her customers she would write a cookbook.
Bergstrom recently released that cookbook in 2010. It is titled “A Taste of Old Germany: Recipes from my Colorado Restaurant and my Childhood,” which can be purchased on Amazon and at the Ginger Jar in Dolores.
Some of her favorites will be at the Rio Grande Southern Restaurant, such as her dumpling soup and her schnitzel.
But Bergstrom said she is going to try to cook more American.
“I needed to reopen the restaurant and I was told that Rita wanted to cook again,” Sieber said. “This just all fell together. What a blessing.”
Sieber is excited to have the schnitzel supreme and a Reuben sandwich on the menu now, but other things will be added as customers ask for them.
“We are just going to go with the flow,” Sieber said. “When people ask for something, we will get it in.”
However, her German roots will likely come forth in the daily special.
On Tuesday, the special was American goulash.
“It’s my husband’s mom’s recipe. He made me make it and I fell in love with it,” Bergstrom said. “It’s yummy stuff.”
