Pinguin Club is my favorite 1950’s Americana-themed bar in Schöneberg. It also happens to double (in the warmer months) as an ice cream shop called des Pinguins Eisloch („the penguin’s ice-hole“).

This smoldering cyclops car is just one of the uncanny pieces of kitsch that make Pinguin special. The bartender controls the headlight. He is a good bartender partly because he seems to delight in things that must be old to him but are still new to others. Once he pulled out a toy penguin push-flipper for us to play with. Another time he bolted in the front door wearing an complete emperor penguin costume and dashed to the back of the bar. We knew it was him because there was no one behind the bar. He returned tussled. Leaning against the bar he said nothing.

I recommend the Pinguin Special–a nice Campari-gin concoction.

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