“PANKE” and “Quinoa”: new life in the courtyard

Hid­den in the fifth cour­ty­ard of Gericht­str. 23, the pro­mi­sed lands of Pan­ke e. V. can be found. Sin­ce its ope­ning two years ago, Pan­ke has been an oasis for musi­ci­ans, artists and peo­p­le loo­king for a place to par­ty at Wed­ding. Wed­ding­wei­ser is try­ing to find out more about the place and explo­res the venue, which is cover­ed in mys­te­rious green pla­ti­ne-light. Jus­tas, Eri­ka and Clau­dia, who run the place and the new­ly ope­ned bis­tro, “Qui­noa” talk about their ideas:

WW: Jus­tas, Eri­ka, you are from Lithua­nia, right? What brought you to Wed­ding? How did you get to run a place like Pan­ke e.V.?

Jus­tas: Well, we came here from Lithua­nia after our Bache­lor degrees and wan­ted to learn Ger­man and then start our Mas­ter pro­gram­mes here… And then we found this place here!! It hadn’t been used for over 60 years, and it see­med so per­fect. We spent about a year res­to­ring it befo­re we were able to open.

Eri­ka: It was real­ly some sort of acci­dent that brought us to this. We just saw this place and had so many ide­as. First, we just saw this as the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for music, and brin­ging musi­ci­ans and artists tog­e­ther. We also wan­ted to have a nice, cosy café, ‘cau­se the­se things are kind of rare in Wed­ding. We basi­cal­ly wan­ted to have a mul­ti­func­tion­al space for all sorts of dif­fe­rent things.

WW: If you compa­re the­se ide­as that you had in your mind to what is hap­pe­ning now at Pan­ke e.V., do you think you rea­li­zed what you saw in this place when you first found it?

Eri­ka: We’ve defi­ni­te­ly got a mul­ti­func­tion­al, mul­ti­pur­po­se venue here with all sorts of dif­fe­rent things going on, like con­certs, par­ties, exhi­bi­ti­ons, instal­la­ti­ons, work­shops, per­for­man­ces and so on.

Jus­tas: Yeah, we wan­ted a beau­tiful, cosy café and space for artists, and that is hap­pe­ning here now.

WW: Was it hard for you to open a place like this in Wed­ding? How did you deal with all the bureaucracy?

Eri­ka: It wasn’t that bad at all… We basi­cal­ly just didn’t nego­tia­te the regu­la­ti­ons at all, becau­se we couldn’t – we just did what we were told to do, so now we’re pro­ba­b­ly Berlin’s safest club when it comes to fol­lo­wing the regu­la­ti­ons… (laughs)

WW: You’ve been here for three years now – what has chan­ged within the last few years in Wedding?

Jus­tas: I’m going to tell you some­thing you won’t find or hear any­whe­re else: There’s no real gen­tri­fi­ca­ti­on going on here. Not all that much has chan­ged, real­ly. Well, the­re are more peo­p­le coming to Wed­ding, but the­re still aren’t many tou­rists. The peo­p­le just haven’t chan­ged all that much.

WW:What do you know about the venue, about Gericht­str. 23? The­re seem to be a lot of dif­fe­rent things going on in this buil­ding… Are you con­nec­ted to the­se groups, too?

Eri­ka: Yeah, there’s Tan­go­l­oft, for exam­p­le, and there’s a gal­lery… Also, the­re are some peo­p­le who want to open a club. We’re all neigh­bours, and of cour­se we have mee­tings and help each other out. It’s always gre­at if someone starts some­thing new in Wed­ding, so we sup­port each other.

WW: Clau­dia, “Qui­noa” is the new addi­ti­on to the Pan­ke-fami­ly. A vegan and vege­ta­ri­an bis­tro in Wed­ding, how does that come about?

Clau­dia: Oh, we just star­ted the bis­tro about one month ago, and so far it is going pret­ty well. Ope­ning a vegan place is a chall­enge, but it is also exci­ting. We’ve alre­a­dy got some regu­lars who come almost every day. In Wed­ding, the­re aren’t all that many opti­ons for vege­ta­ri­ans or vegans so we fill a gap here.

WW: How did you come to run­ning a vege­ta­ri­an bis­tro in Wedding?

Clau­dia: I come from Ita­ly, and I came to Ber­lin a few years ago. I star­ted orga­ni­zing ran­dom din­ners at ran­dom places with ran­dom peo­p­le, becau­se I wan­ted to con­nect peo­p­le. Then I ope­ned a place in Kreuz­berg. A fri­end intro­du­ced me to Eri­ka and Jus­tas, and it work­ed out – now Qui­noa is my new baby. I star­ted living vegan six months ago, and it chan­ges you. I’ve been used to coo­king with meat and fish, so vegan coo­king is very exci­ting and new to me.

WW: What can we expect from “Qui­noa” in the future?

Clau­dia: We’ll have the regu­lar bis­tro, but we’ll also host events like per­for­mance din­ners. Also, we are dre­a­ming of start­ing a mar­ket for local goods and farm pro­ducts. We want to invi­te local peo­p­le and far­mers, we are dre­a­ming of having a space for peo­p­le to con­nect and share.

WW: What are future plans for Pan­ke e.V.?

Eri­ka: We want to get big! (laughs) We’ve kind of finis­hed buil­ding the place – I mean, it will never be finis­hed, but we’re on a good way. Now, we can invest in new pro­jects and branch out. For that, we need to plan more, which is easier now­wi­th the expe­ri­ence we’ve gathe­red during the last few years. Also, we need more help, becau­se at the moment it is just us run­ning the place, and that is real­ly exhaus­ting. But we have big plans and ide­as, and we want to see this place growing…

Inter­view by Danie­la Hombach

Regu­lar events at Panke:
Bass auf die Muet­ze – Jam ses­si­on, every Wed­nes­day 8bit Bar – every first Thurs­day Scope Ses­si­on – every second Thurs­day UKIYO‑E Pan­ke Cine­ma – every third Thurs­day Citi­zen­Ki­no – every fourth Thursday
Sup­port your local ghet­to – every last Fri­day of the month Wed­ding Soul – every third Satur­day of the month
More infor­ma­ti­on: http://www.pankeculture.com/