Mecklenburg's Garden

Background

Mecklenburg Gardens in Cincinnati’s Corryville neighborhood has been a local fixture since its early days as a restaurant. The Italianate building, likely built as a house around 1865, became a restaurant by 1870. John Neeb ran it first, then sold it in 1886 to an employee, Louis Mecklenburg, who renamed it from Mount Auburn Garden Restaurant and turned it from a saloon into a German beer garden. This thrived as Cincinnati’s German-born population hit 25 percent, making beer gardens popular.

The restaurant expanded over time, with a walled outdoor dining area shaded by awnings and grapevine-covered trellises. During Prohibition, when beer sales were illegal, it operated as a speakeasy alongside a legal restaurant; a ship model’s position on a counter signaled whether alcohol was safe to buy. In the 1970s, the building was structurally restored while owned by an ashram, which reportedly tried but failed to convert the kitchen staff. The restaurant closed several times in the late 1900s but reopened in 1996 and remains open.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The rectangular brick building sits on a stone foundation, with small dining rooms and a central pub area inside, plus the historic garden outside.