The Steins Are Full. Redwood City’s German Dining Scene Is Thinner

"One of the busiest days ever." That's how Mehmet Vural, co-owner of Dasbierhauz, described the beer garden's final shift on Middlefield Road this past June 30. Two years after he brought his Mountain View concept to Redwood City, the partnership behind it fell apart and the doors closed for good. Six weeks later, Oktoberfest tents went up three blocks away at Courthouse Square, and they're still standing this weekend for the festival's last stretch, September 25 through 27.

That timing is the whole story. Downtown Redwood City is about to throw its biggest, longest German celebration in years at the exact moment its everyday German dining scene has shrunk to a single address. If you want bratwurst and a stein on a random Tuesday night this fall, Gourmet Haus Staudt is now the only place in town that will serve it to you. The festival got bigger. The restaurant category it celebrates got smaller. Both things are true at once, and neither cancels the other out.

Ten Days of Steins, One Restaurant Left Standing

Oktoberfest Downtown Redwood City runs an extended schedule this year, September 18 through 27 with a rest day on the 21st, filling Courthouse Square with more than 2,000 feet of bench seating under a Munich-style tent. The lineup splits between full festival seatings on the weekends, with bands like The Internationals and the Golden Gate Bavarian Club, and shorter happy-hour music sets on weeknights. Tickets range from $10 for non-drinkers up to $35 for the 21-and-over crowd, with $250 VIP tables for six that include a commemorative stein. The city runs it, and Spaten Beer and the Redwood City Parks and Arts Foundation help sponsor it. Details and the full schedule are posted on the city's Oktoberfest page.

That's the festival calendar. The restaurant calendar tells a different story. Dasbierhauz opened in Redwood City in 2024 as an expansion of Vural's original Mountain View spot, built around pretzels, schnitzel, and the option of a one-liter beer boot. It didn't make it to a third year. According to reporting in Palo Alto Online, the closure came down to a partnership that fell apart when Vural's business partner moved away, not to a lack of business, and Vural has said he'd like to open more locations eventually. For now, that leaves Gourmet Haus Staudt holding the German lane by itself, the way it did before Dasbierhauz arrived.

So the festival that exists to celebrate German food and drink is now the only reliably German thing happening downtown for ten days a year. The other 355, there's exactly one restaurant covering that ground.

The Corner That Turned Korean in Six Weeks

The Middlefield Road space Dasbierhauz vacated didn't sit empty for long. Job postings for a new concept called Gangsan started appearing on Indeed almost immediately, and by late July a window menu was already up, listing galbijjim, seolleongtang, kalguksu, and sizzling bibimbap. By September, Gangsan wasn't just open, it was drawing the kind of Yelp review that calls it the best new Korean restaurant on the whole peninsula.

That's a fast turn for a corner spot. A beer garden that had been open for two years closed, a new operator staffed up, built out a menu, and opened to paying customers, all inside roughly two months. For a downtown grid that runs on a handful of walkable blocks, that kind of turnover changes what's actually available on a given night faster than most residents track it. If your last visit to that stretch of Middlefield was for a Dasbierhauz pretzel, the current version of that same address serves braised short ribs and ox bone soup instead.

The Rest of the Corridor Didn't Wait Either

Gangsan isn't an isolated swap. The blocks around Courthouse Square have been absorbing new restaurant capacity all year without losing any of the events that make the square itself a draw.

The most visible addition sits at the opposite end of the food spectrum from a beer garden. Reef Zaman soft opened June 29 in the former Sizzler space on Veterans Boulevard, a flame-grilled Mediterranean concept from restaurateur Faris Alqabass, who also runs Mandi House in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The room seats about 280 people inside, with a 2,000-square-foot patio addition planned that would bring another 300 seats. Leading the kitchen is chef Mohammed Al-Omari, who came over from nearby Mazra, meaning the neighborhood's Mediterranean restaurants are now trading staff with each other rather than importing talent from outside. Details on the menu and build-out are in Palo Alto Online's coverage of the opening.

A few blocks over, Bay Burgers finally has walls. Chef Xavier Pereznegron, a Redwood City native who worked his way up through fine dining before deciding he'd rather flip smashburgers, ran the concept as a pop-up out of a tent for two years, starting at Hoover Park in the summer of 2024. The brick and mortar opened on Woodside Road in March, with a rotating menu of smoked meats, loaded fries, and milkshakes. It's not walkable from Courthouse Square, but it's a five-minute drive, which puts it in range for anyone already heading out to a Wednesday Music in the Park set at Stafford Park.

Two more additions round out what's changed. DeVine Wine & Beer took over the former BottleShop space on Broadway with a curated list built around food pairings. Fireside Books & More opened at 2421 Broadway in February 2025, run by founders Andrew Johnson and Taylor Kubota, stocking literature alongside cards, jewelry from Wandergrove, and birdhouses from LeighLee's Garden. It's the kind of independent bookstore downtown had gone without for years.

None of this displaced the events calendar that gives the square its rhythm. Music on the Square ran its full 14-week Friday run through the summer, part of its 20th season. Movies on the Square held its Thursday slot through early September. Shakespeare in the Park brought San Francisco Shakespeare Festival's production of Antony and Cleopatra to Red Morton Park for three weekends in August. The restaurants changed underneath a schedule that didn't.

This Weekend, In Order

For anyone deciding how to spend the last few days of Oktoberfest, the new corridor gives you options that weren't on the map even three months ago.

• Before the tent, Friday or Saturday: Gangsan for galbijjim or a Broadway kitchen for something lighter.
• Inside the festival: the weekend seatings run through Sunday the 27th, with The Internationals playing Friday through Sunday of the final weekend.
• After, if the group runs long: Reef Zaman's 280-seat room on Veterans Boulevard handles a crowd that a smaller Broadway spot can't.
• Sunday morning recovery: The Baker Next Door on Main Street, for a boule or a pain suisse before the week resets.

None of that requires choosing between the festival and the new restaurants. They sit close enough together that stringing them into one evening is the actual point.

What the Turnover Says About the Neighborhood

A downtown that can lose a two-year-old beer garden and replace it with a well-reviewed Korean restaurant inside six weeks, while adding a 280-seat Mediterranean room, a smashburger brick and mortar, a wine bar, and an independent bookstore in the same stretch, is a downtown with more restaurant demand than it has corners to fill. Oktoberfest will pack the square through Sunday night. What happens on the blocks around it once the tent comes down is the more durable story, and this year it points toward Korean short ribs and Mediterranean lamb chops as often as it points toward pretzels.

If you're weighing what a Redwood City address is actually worth to you day to day, downtown's food corridor is one of the clearer signals, and it's worth watching how it keeps turning over. For questions about what's happening in specific pockets of the Peninsula market, Rick Lei is always glad to talk through it.