Hannah Seyfert says her motives were, at the start, purely selfish.
When Seyfert learned this summer that Lehr’s German Specialties in San Francisco’s Noe Valley was closing, she was mainly concerned about where she was going to find a place to buy the kind of dumplings and other German foods that reminded her of home in Hannover, Germany.
“At first for me, it was like, ‘I want the store to continue,’” Seyfert said. “I want to know where I will get my Christmas stollen [a traditional German fruitcake] from.”
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The answer to that question, it turns out, is Seyfert herself. Last month, she signed a deal to take over the 50-year-old business from its original owner, Brigitte Lehr, who said failing eyesight had made it impossible for her to continue operating it.
"I feel proud that there's a representation of my culture in San Francisco. That's why it means so much to me and I wanted to keep it," Seyfert said.
Seyfert first stumbled across Lehr’s not long after moving to the Bay Area seven years ago.
"Just walked by that store like, 'Oh my God, that's a German store.' That felt so cool to be represented in a different city," she said.
Seyfert soon became one of Lehr’s regular customers. Anytime she wanted a taste of home, both literally and figuratively, she could find it at the Church Street storefront.
The store clearly meant a lot to Seyfert, but what she didn’t realize until taking it over was how much it meant to so many others.
While she is sprucing up the place in preparation for its reopening with a fresh coat of paint, Seyfert leaves the front door open and a steady stream of customers, from down the street and across the Bay Area, pop their heads in.
“It just means so much to so many neighbors and people in the neighborhood,” Seyfert said. “They come from different parts of the city just to stop by and tell me how much it means to them. Honestly, it makes me really happy."
Seyfert plans to reopen Lehr’s, with the same name but an updated look and product line, sometime in November.
