great bar, prices ok, bartenders seem happy enough to make you a coffee at midnight where many other classier places give you the evil eye for asking after they've cleaned the machine.
i'm finding it very difficult to understand all the reviews about the place being violent or throwing people out for the mere crime of ordering a beer. are the staff unconditionally friendly, no. And places where they are, they are usually required to be, i.e., places i tend to avoid, because one remains human even when one stands behind a bar. is the floor clean enough to eat off of, no, it's a bar, not a hospital. is it normal to get beat up for requesting service, no, not there, and not anywhere else either, and if it happened on such a regular basis, why are they still operating? i find it hard to believe that customers are getting beat up left and right and failing to call the police.
but who knows? most of the severely negative reviews were written by users with two or fewer reviews to their name. maybe another bar in the area views them as a threat, or maybe somebody who got fired or a former stammkunde who got snotty after being asked to pay his three-year-long tab has been busy behind the keyboard.
feuermelder is actually one of the lesser punk Punk Bars I know of in berlin, i can think of a handful that are far more radical than they are. it's watered-down enough that normal people can very comfortably sit and have a few drinks and a couple rounds on the pinball machine without feeling out of place. although i'm tattooed and pierced, i'm also female, visibly foreign and prefer hip hop or house music. i don't make the impression of being (or even liking) punk at all, but i also don't make the impression of being a stuck-up a$$hole or a sucker. maybe the people who've had bad experiences hereassuming they're not all the same person, that isdon't realize that wearing a black flag patch on the back of their leather jacket doesn't grant them automatic entry into the club. Get the idea that anybody gives a sh*t about you one way or the other out of your head. Aggressive people (who can be found anywhere, not just in the feuermelder) can smell fear and uncertainty; if you're wearing a shirt made of steak it's maybe better not to walk into the dog pound. And maybe, just maybe, the very essence of the problem is the try-hardness that comes with worrying yourself into a lather about whether you're being accepted with open arms by a pile of drunks in friedrichshain and just get on with ordering your fricking beer and having a good time with your friends.
you don't need to be a punk rocker to go to the feuermelder, das ist ja reinster Blödsinn. you just need to feel comfortable in alternative settings, and not worry about other people's opinions on whether you fit in. like everywhere and everything in life. punkt. read more
