Bodensee — Restaurant in Helen

Bodensee Restaurant, Helen GA Review (For Google)

For the best, most authentic German tasting meal I've had in the 30-some years since I left Germany, GO HERE! While it is not the easiest place in Helen to find - it's located behind the Wendy's and Huddle House at the end of what looks like a parking lot on Munich Strasse, which is just off South Main - the main strip, or 'drag' that was the original Helen. (Yeah, I'm an old wizen grizzled traveler. ;-) )

The proprietor, a German chef, and his hostess wife, also from Germany, serve some of the best, most authentic German food I've ever had here in the United States. The spätzle was obviously hand made and hand rolled, and yellowed with butter the way it used to be when I'd get it in a little German cafe' or restaurant in Germany. And I know my spätzle because I LOVE spätzle, so I know the difference between what comes out of a package and what's just been made with fresh dough. Kudos to them for that.

I had the "Grilled Chicken Breast with Mushroom Sauce" as a main dish, figuring it would be like a Jagerschnitzel, albeit made with chicken instead, and I was right! The grilled chicken was done to perfection, with just a hint of that grilling flavor hiding underneath the thick, heavily laden with mushrooms mushroom sauce - not too heavy! mind you, but cut thin, sprinkled with enough that you could have a bit of mushroom in every bite if you wanted to. And the chicken breast was huge, a nice large portion, and it brought tears to my eyes when I had to push the plate away, a third of the chicken still uneaten - but I wanted! My stomach got so full. :)

My wife got the breaded & fried veal cutlets (pounded nice and thin, so thin she could eat them like pancakes, so tender they were!) - covered in an onion sauce, and she got their roasted potatoes which were SO like her late farmer father's steamed potatoes in cut, consistency, and roasting with simple herbs & pepper that she almost cried, it took her back to him & his meals. She simply loved it, and she, like me, had so much on her plate she could not finish it. Wishing we had the refrigerator Hofbrau Riverfront Hotel had promised us, we sooooo reluctantly had to leave way too much behind. Just thinking about going back there again makes me drool, and I get hungry. What can I say?

They served the finest German meal I've had in over 30 years - and I've tried many places here in the USA. This has been the best!

The atmosphere, for those of you who are not familiar with Germany, isn't so 'Bavarian' (which is way under & over & wrongly done in certain parts of Helen - with cleanliness starting first! That is one dirty city; true Germans would not live in such a state.) It is like a pub or a bar or a small family owned restaurant one might find tucked along some cobblestone path through a town, or in a village; near a farm. It is slightly small and a bit crowded - but not too much! - simply enough to keep the patrons warm on a cold night with a cozy and tight enough atmosphere to make beer drinking seem fun, not the dreary occupation you see in so many Western bars. It has a nice, friendly, somewhat clutter (but that's because there is so much to display! And they've won so many awards) - what can I say here but . . .

Go and eat at the Bodensee if you want the "authentic" thing, and be aware it takes some time from the point of order to when you get your food - and that's because it is all freshly done! Sehr gut! Das beste essen in der ganzen Stadt! :D (Loved it! Would eat there again! Get hungry every time I think of it! Yummm! From an old German! :-)

. . . and if you like this review & the accompanying pics, a "Thumbs Up" sure would be nice to 'me', your working Local Guide....

This place has lost its beauty. I couldn't wait to eat here, it has been on of my favorites every time I visited Helen. However, this time, it was terrible. We got there on Friday night about 8pm. We asked to sit in the restaurant. There was a table of six people and a table of two people in there. It took our waitress about ten minutes to come and get our drink order. Then we were told she would be right back. After another ten minutes she came and took our order. I didn't complain, because I knew she was trying to clear out those other tables. After placing the order (I ordered the Goulash and my husband ordered the wurst platter). To begin paying what we did for the food was terrible. The Goulash was no more than about a cup of stew, it was mostly a liquid gravy. The meat was tender, but it was tasteless and barely warm. I assumed I got the bottom of stew pot, since it was later in the evening. It came with spätzle and red cabbage. The spätzle was cold and chewy. You could tell it had been made several hours earlier. The red cabbage was just okay. However, it has never been my favorite here (see other reviews). My husband's meal consisted of bratwurst, garlic wurst and weisswurst, saurkraut and he picked the fried potatoes, instead of the potato salad. The brat and garlic were okay, the brat being the best, it was actually hot, but the other two were barely warm. The weisswurst, had been cooked so long or it was cooked days earlier and they just reheated it, that the meat inside kind of disintegrate with you started to chew it. It kind of turned powdery when you chewed it. We have had this at other places and it does not typically do that. His potatoes were warm, but not hot. They were not fresh. They had been sitting in oil and under a heat lamp. His saurkraut was the best part of his meal. Now should I have complained to the owners or manager, more than likely yes. But I didn't want to have wait or keep them waiting any longer. It felt like they were wanting us to hurry up and leave. They were cleaning everything around us and cashing out tips, etc. It was not a pleasant evening for us. I will say that from the first time I have ever eaten here to this time, it has gone really down hill. It seems like they are more focused on their biergarten more than the beauty of their restaurant. I miss the way it was back many years ago, when it was a just a small quaint restaurant that focused on the quality of the food and service. I am not sure if it is the same owners, if they have hired new cooks, if their focus has gone away from their food quality or what? I am not sure. I would say it was from 2020, but I was there in 2024 and the food was some what better than it was this time. So you cannot blame it on that. I will say that we were told that the owners now work with the community to employ residents of the local rehabilitation shelters. Okay, that is great that they are trying to help people, but that still should not impact your food quality and service (unless they are the ones cooking the food and managing service, then this might explain it). As of today, my husband and I were so disappointed with it, that we do not plan to revisit, seeing as there are other places in the area that offer better quality food...

Where to begin… I’d give this restaurant a zero if I could. My daughter and I came for dinner at 4:45 on Tuesday afternoon – the place was practically empty which should have been a clue, but we’d read so many good reviews and decided to give it a chance. The dining room was closed, so we were seated in the covered back patio area. There were a couple tables with people, and it was well-staffed. Our waitress acknowledged our existence after about 10 minutes of waiting for menus. I got a beer and Hungarian Goulash, and my daughter got the Chicken Chef Schnitzel. We shared an onion soup as an appetizer. The table next to us was seated by two different families and both served a complete meal before we received our appetizer – and we never did see our waitress after dropping off our drinks. When our meals finally came, we had to walk around the restaurant searching each table for utensils and napkins – they’re kept in these little basket things fully open to bugs/dust/etc. on each table (yuck!) The onion soup broth was straight from a Campbells soup can and there was barely any cheese. Our dinners were absolutely disgusting and completely inedible. The goulash meat was tough and chewy and the sauce had a weird taste of BBQ – nothing like goulash, which I’ve had many times. The schnitzel had no flavor and the mushrooms were cold and raw. Both of our meals came with a side of Spätzle, and it was dry and tasted like it was straight from a box. We were finally able to flag down our waitress for our bill after being there for an hour and a half. When 10 minutes went by after taking our credit card, a manager came by to see if she could help us, and I told her we simply wanted to pay our bill and leave to get a decent meal to eat. She walked away and our $80 bill came a second later. Our waitress gave a lame excuse (lies) about the POS system not working – which wasn’t an issue with any other table. So disappointing and a complete waste of money! Avoid this place...