PLACE: A visit to Autohalle Andelfingen

Recently i see places for car lovers pop up every here and there in switzerland and europe generally. They’re mostly focussing on either the wealthy, or oldtimer loving or focussing on a special theme. A few months ago the Autohalle in Andelfingen opened. It is a completely bespoke build not far away from where i live, and directly located at my daily route from and to work. So everytime i thought i should give it a visit. Well, luckily a friend suggested the same when we decided for a men’s night out. So we jumped into the car and headed to the industrial area outside of Andelfingen, located just next to the A4 Autobahn
The concept is a combined storage location for “special” cars, a specialized workshop and restauration operation and a restaurant / hotel along with an event-hall for all sorts of event.

I didn’t really plan on writing a story about our visit, so i didn’t bring any camera or so along. but when we lurked aroun dthe building, i was seriously surprised to see a ZX on the workshop parking, so i took some pictures.

These cars are not very common in the swiss “oldie” community, so i was seriously surprized to find another ZX parked around the corner (sorry for the blurry mobile phone pix)

We had a lurk through the event-hall window, which was scattered with some really old cars and an older ferrari, but because there were people having a talk inside, i didn’t want to be a stalker and take photos of them.
So we went to the restaurant which has a really cool modern vintage vibe combined with some industrial flavour. A great entrance and cool bar and a surprisingly big restaurant with random vintage motorcycles, an pre WWII Citroen and a fiat 500 scattered between the tables.

There’s even a barn find “Lucie” real-life diorama on top of the open kitchen, complete with all the dust and bits and pieces scattered around them, just as the found the car. 🙂 The Location was filled to the brim that evening so i didn’t want to walk around between the people and take pictures with my phone while they were eating. The kitchen is open so everybody can see the cook prepairing your meal. They’re well known for their high-quality grill specialities cooked on this open fire:

And the food was Yum! I had this cured local type of River Berch (fish) with apple bits and a sourcream dressing, along with an excellent local white wine

And a vegatarian Eggplant Ravioli that evening, but they also had beautiful burgers and lots of other great looking food. The dessert came served in style on an old Swissair trolley:

Once you go upstairs you find yourself in a beautiful Restroom area, again with that minimal-steampunk-meets-modern style:

They also have a varity of hotel rooms, which i’m sure look lovely inside as well.

When you look out of your hotel room door, you see directy into the car storage area which is split up to four levels, however the two unerground ones are not visible from the outside, so i guess that’s where probably the more valuable cars sit.

Again i was very surprized to find this little toyota on the third floor.

On the second floor there is additional a big cigar and whiskey lounge with a large selection of the finest stuff. Unfortunately i didn’t take a picture of that.
The place also hosts talk to famous motorsports people in front of the cigar lounge fire-pit and the event-area hosts space for many people, so they’re definitely set up for many people.
Hopefully i’ll be able to return soon again with my camera and ask for a complete tour. I will definitely go there again, what a cool place. Check out their Website for more infos: Autohalle.