Nepalese guest workers open new restaurant: La Marina in Altenberge!

Nepalese guest workers open new restaurant: La Marina in Altenberge!

Mohan Prasad Adhikari, a 51-year-old guest worker from Nepal, signed the purchase contract for an empty restaurant in Altenberge a few weeks ago. The eatery, formerly known as Pomodoro Rosso, is set to open under the name La Marina in the near future. Adhikari and his wife Pramila Gautam have been dreaming of having their own restaurant for decades and are now happy to finally be able to make this dream come true.

Adhikari came to Germany over 20 years ago, part of a long history of people leaving their homeland behind to find better life prospects. All of this started in the 1950s, when Germany was experiencing a strong economic miracle and employers were urgently looking for workers. The Federal Republic of Germany and Italy concluded the first recruitment agreement in 1955. Many young Italians, like Giovanni Di Stefano, saw a chance for a better life in Germany.

The journey of the guest workers

Giovanni, originally on his way to becoming a priest, soon found himself in Cologne, where he opened the Italian restaurant that is still popular today and invented a method for making frozen pizza - a hit that won Dr. Oetker is supplied with 150,000 pizzas per month. Even though Gianni Di Stefano had to sell his pizza factory due to health problems, he left an important mark on the history of gastronomy. His daughter Patrizia wrote a novel about his life, which is scheduled to be published in spring 2024. This not only tells about emigration, but also about the challenges and resilience of guest worker families.

The recruitment of labor continued over the years: from 1960 to 1968, agreements were concluded with countries such as Greece, Spain, Turkey and Morocco. These so-called guest workers, often without much knowledge of the German language and culture, kept the economy running while doing dirty and physically difficult work. Many lived in modest conditions in dormitories and struggled with the challenges of life in a foreign country. Despite these hurdles, they made friends and began to settle down in Germany for the long term.

A look into the future

The life stories like those of Adhikari and Di Stefano are not only formative for Germany's gastronomic landscape, but also show how strongly immigrant culture has influenced society. Today the proportion of foreigners in Germany is around 15 percent, with a large proportion of the population with a migrant background living in West Germany.

With his new restaurant in Altenberge, Mohan Prasad Adhikari wants to represent a piece of his homeland and at the same time show how successful integration efforts can be. It will be exciting to see how La Marina, which will soon open its doors, will be received and what new stories will emerge within it.

This closes the circle from the history of guest workers to new entrepreneurial adventures that connect worlds and promote diversity. This is a good sign for the future, especially since it is known that many guest workers and their descendants do not forget their roots and want to further strengthen the bridge between cultures.