Schmankerl Stube founder Charlie Sekula dies

Back in the late 1980s, many residents had given up on downtown Hagerstown, including the first block of South Potomac Street.

"There were a lot of shady places there on South Potomac Street," recalled Hagerstown broadcaster Lou Scally, and he named a few of them.

But Gotthard "Charlie" Sekula took a chance anyway, and opened a Bavarian restaurant on the northeast corner of South Potomac and Antietam streets, across from the Washington County Free Library.

"I think Charlie was the lone guy there on the corner … and a lot of people thought, 'gee, he's not going to make it there.'"

But as his protégé Dieter Blosel noted Thursday, Sekula would always say "'I can do it.' And if you would tell him 'you cannot,' (he would say) 'I will prove to you that I can do it.'"

And while other restaurants have come and gone, Sekula's restaurant, the Schmankerl Stube (which means "Bavarian culinary delicacy in a cozy room") has carried on — and expanded.

On Wednesday, the restaurant announced that Sekula had passed away. He was 77.

Though he sold the restaurant several years ago, he remained an active part of it until Parkinson's disease and dementia finally sidelined him.

"I think Charlie starting that restaurant, that was the start of the renaissance of that block," said Scally, who had been Sekula's friend for years. "And of course, everything else came in line — everything with The Maryland Theatre, (developer) Don Bowman investing and other investors investing in that block.

"He was able to make it happen, and I think everybody really knew that he had the tenacity to stay with that."

Sekula wanted to give his patrons a taste of his native Bavaria. Servers wore traditional dirndls (they still do) and beer steins dangled from hooks near the bar.

"He brought a great restaurant to Hagerstown," Scally said. "He paid attention to detail. The place was always immaculate. He always took pride in the way it looked."

Sekula also was instrumental in turning what began as a gathering for the family of former Mayor Winslow Burhans into a yearly local celebration of German culture.

Augustoberfest, which officially marks its 25-year milestone this year, began when Winslow's wife Jane asked Sekula to help with the reunion, which was drawing relations from around the country.

"What he thought was, that reunion was happening — how could we make it bigger for the community to be a part of?" remembered Karen Giffin, then community affairs manager for the city of Hagerstown.

Giffin said the city was preparing to dedicate the Elizabeth Hager Center on North Potomac Street that year, and they decided to combine the events.

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"And I will tell you this — Charlie Sekula really believed; he really wanted to bring that cultural festival, he believed in his restaurant and really believed in the community," Giffin said, "and wanted to give to the community an event, a restaurant, that really showcased the German culture that he knew.

"And he always really believed it at heart … he believed in the community at heart."

Current Augustoberfest Chairwoman Jill Colbert said Sekula hinted she should chair the festival's board from the time she joined it.

"It was like the big joke for the first couple years," she said.

But there was a great chairman at that time, she said, and she looked to Sekula as a mentor.

"He had a vision of the way he wanted things to be," Colbert said. "He wanted to make sure that things were authentic, not just a festival, but for you to feel like you're in Munich.

"The artists that we found to create murals, the food that he cooked … so that people could come and experience a piece of his history and his life, and just the hard work — we all were perfectionists, we always had to have everything just so."

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They talked a lot each year about what worked, what could be improved, what to do for the next year.

"As we had great years, we had opportunity to not just provide foundation money to our sister city (Wesel, Germany), but we were able to then also give back to a various arts organizations — Discovery Station, The Maryland Theatre, Barbara Ingram School — so that was all very important to him as well."

It was Sekula, Colbert said, who first suggested the festival had outgrown its downtown venue and should be moved. This year's festival is set for Aug. 20-21 at the Washington County Agricultural Education Center on Sharpsburg Pike.

"He wanted to move it to make it bigger," Colbert said, "and for a while I was the one that said no, until we really needed to get a larger space. And so this is the year that we were making it a lot larger and so it breaks my heart that I didn't do it sooner so he could enjoy that."

Sekula sold "the Stube" to Blosel, his executive chef, in 2008. But he continued to work at the restaurant, greeting diners and socializing with them. He retired in 2017.

"He was my friend, my 'father,' my mentor," Blosel told The Herald-Mail.

Seklula brought Blosel from Germany to work at the restaurant in 1999. "And we had a very close relationship. He taught me a lot" — not only about the restaurant, he said, but learning how things were done in the United States.

"He was always telling me, 'you need to get used to that,'" Blosel said.

"And also he was always somebody who, to me, who worked effortlessly for others, for the community. He did a lot of things what I did not, in the beginning, quite understand because well, I was just ... not used to that. … But he always said 'you know, that's what we're doing here. We're doing it for the community; we need to be part of it. And you need to give."

To that end, Sekula was always working for others in addition to the many hours he devoted to the restaurant, Blosel said.

"That was his way of, OK we want to make a better community. And that was always something what, in his mind, it was the utmost thing you can do. Just make the community better. Do what you can to make it better.

"And that sometimes needs a lot of extra work for you but it is important to do and in the end, what goes around comes around. Eventually it will benefit you, too."

"He truly enjoyed people and loved people," Colbert said, "and I think that's also why (Augustoberfest) was so successful — because people came for the food and the entertainment, but they also came to see Charlie.

"And so we will be making sure that he will be greatly honored this year during the weekend."

"When you became a friend with Charlie Sekula, you were a friend for life," Giffin said. "I'm very honored to know Charlie; he definitely was a giant in many ways."

"Certainly if you asked him his opinion, he would tell you very exactly what was on his mind," Scally said. "I think he knew what needed to be done (downtown) and I think he sometimes got frustrated (that) the wheels turn too slowly.

"But for the most part, I think it was a great relationship between him and the city."

"He was always straightforward," Blosel said. "He said always what he meant … and sometimes he was wrong. If he was wrong, he admitted it."

"I can only hope to be half the person that he was," Colbert said. "And so I will do my best to be that greeter this year (at Augustoberfest).

"It will be different that he won't be by my side, though."