More than a century of food and community-building bring Cleveland’s Stockyards neighborhood together at Sachsenheim Hall. Lent is one of the best times to visit the German social club and bar for its popular fish fry, along with other German specialties like schnitzel and paprikash.
Plus, somehow, a wild taco menu — but we’ll get to that later.
The square, three-floor brick building stands tall at 7001 Denison Ave., with a marquee awning looming over front doors, showcasing in bold letters SACHSENHEIM, translating to “Saxon Home.” The structure traces back to the late 1800s, when it first welcomed German immigrants, specifically Transylvanian Saxons, as they immigrated to Northeast Ohio.
In Sachsenheim Hall, nostalgia surrounds you, especially in the music room. Here, you’ll find trophies, plaques and commemorative ceramic steins, along with black-and-white photos of bands, dance groups and clubs that formed here. Decades’ worth of patrons — seen smiling in the framed prints hung on the wood-paneled walls — have grown and hosted their lives’ biggest celebrations in the building, including birthday parties, weddings, quinceaneras and baby showers.
And those parties could get a little wild. Even decades ago. Joan Miller-Malue, the secretary of the Alliance of Transylvanian Saxons’s Branch 4, remembers her childhood in the ’50s and ’60s, full of Sachsenheim Hall festivities which crept into the late-night hours.
“I remember as a child coming home with my parents at four in the morning, and my father making us get up for church at 8 a.m.,” remembers Miller-Malue. “Even after a long night at the Sachsenheim, every Saxon was at church on Sunday morning.”
Entire generations of Clevelanders have called the space theirs, says Amy Osborne, Sachsenheim’s general manager.
“Customers that are my age come in here, and they’re like, ‘My grandparents got married upstairs. We’ve been coming here for years,’” Osborne says. “It’s not a well-known place, but the people who do know about it cherish it.”
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Fridays mean fish at Sachsenheim Hall, year-round. The reasonably priced dining event — featuring beer-battered or baked cod ($10.95) and swai ($9.95), panko breaded perch ($16.95), a shrimp basket ($10.95) or fish and chips ($7.95) — has become one of its most popular days of business, especially leading up to Easter.
“During Lent, that gets pretty crazy,” Osborne says. “Tuesdays and Fridays are our busiest days.”
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The menus shift a bit every day. Fish frys on Fridays and tacos on Tuesdays — but don’t forget about wing Wednesdays and burger Thursdays. And, of course, there’s whatever-the-chefs-feel-like-making Saturdays and Sundays.
“I give my chefs a lot of license. They have to still do our staples; we have to have schnitzel, we always have to have paprikash,” Osborne says. “Certain things, we always have.”
The taco menu has earned a big following in Cleveland. It’s no wonder why: Nearly 40 types are available for order, mixing together traditional Mexican fillings like carnitas, chipotle chicken and tequila lime chicken, listed alongside flavors that only make sense at a place like Sachsenheim, like chicken paprikash, goulash and stuffed cabbage. And they’re quite the deal at $2.50 a pop.
You can thank former chef Scott “Grumpy” Lindell for the whole spinoff. Lindell, known for founding Grumpy’s Cafe in Tremont, formerly ran Sachsenheim’s kitchen for more than 20 years before moving out of state to care for sick family members in 2020. Ever since, Osborne has managed the space, along with Lindell’s menus of fan-favorite recipes, including the tacos.
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So how — and why — does a historic German restaurant get into the taco game in the first place? And how are those tacos so good that Sachsenheim cracked the top 10 Cleveland Mexican restaurants, as compiled by Stacker’s Cleveland Yelp data?
It was all in the name of efficiency; Lindell started the special years ago as a way to reduce waste from butchering processes for steaks, pork loins and more.
“We chop it all down. It was an inexpensive way to make tacos,” Osborne says. “But in that is a variety: a variety so huge, because we’re working with many different products for seafood, chicken, beef, pork, all these products. So he’s developed that Taco Tuesday into a list that’s 40 items long, 40 ridiculous choices to choose from.”
They’re worth the hype. On a January Tuesday, I stopped by a busy barroom with a friend to try a few of the creations. My favorite was the punchy tequila lime chicken taco, seconded by the sweet-and-savory honey garlic pork. For a twist on traditional taco fillings, I enjoyed the stuffed cabbage taco — a little spicy but still warm and comforting. The chicken paprikash taco is a fun addition, but the simple compositions succeed thanks to more intensely flavored meat options.
Traditional or not, all the options paired well with a pint of German lager ($5) and a platter of barbecue pork nachos. A sweet blueberry empanada ($2.75) served as a not-too-sweet dessert.
This Tuesday night presented quite the cultural mish-mash, which is fitting for this Stockyards standout eatery that’s always been known as a home for its surrounding community.
“It kind of evolved with the way the neighborhood evolved. It became very Hispanic, and I’ve had a lot of them tell me this place is a fixture,” Osborne says. “Really, it’s become a home for various cultures.”
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