The couple was sound asleep in the early-morning darkness when the telephone rang, jarring them to consciousness.
"Do you still own the Old Stein Inn?" the caller asked in an urgent tone. "Have you seen what's going on?"
Mike and Beth Selinger hadn't, but when they bundled themselves up for the 6 a.m. chill of Dec. 31 and raced to the top of the hill near their Edgewater home, they soon found out.
It was his parents' dreams and their own, not to mention 28 years of Gemütlichkeit and memories, going up in smoke.
Flames leapt from the rear of the Old Stein, a German restaurant founded by Selinger's parents in 1983. Emergency vehicles and firefighters surrounded the 120-year-old structure, blasting it with water from high-powered hoses.
And as Mike Selinger, the boss and brains of the outfit, stood there, his insides felt "like a washing machine on the third cycle," he says.
"In the best of times, running a restaurant is a form of controlled chaos," he said on an icy morning three days later. "[A fire] takes things to a whole different plane. There's absolutely nothing you can do."
No one was hurt in the blaze, which firefighters extinguished by about 8 a.m., but not before it caused an estimated $550,000 in damage. The Selingers are covered by insurance.
But the place that draws regulars from as far away as Virginia and Western Maryland will be shuttered until the spring at the earliest, its staff out of work, as the owners navigate the tangled rebuilding process.
If nothing else, Beth Selinger says, the fire has given her and her husband a rare chance to savor what the eatery to which they devote their lives means to scores of others.
"As soon as word got out, we were inundated by people calling, e-mailing, stopping by to help," says Selinger, who hopes to have the place up and running before the summer. "People have used words like 'historic' and 'iconic.' The support has been humbling. If it weren't for that, I'm not sure where we'd be right now."
Regulars
Ask guests or staffers what's so special about "the Stein," as many call the place, and similar themes emerge.
It's more than a restaurant. It's a kind of home away from home, they say.
And in an age when franchise eateries offer a "cookie-cutter" experience — and often go out of business before long — it radiates an enduring uniqueness.
It can take years — even generations — to create such an establishment.
"Come to the Old Stein, and you feel as if you've put on a warm coat in the middle of winter," says Tom Eilenberg, who discovered the place in 1984 and has gone there at least once a week since. "It's impossible to fake that kind of atmosphere."
The story of the place began, in fact, about 60 years ago, in the German state of Rheinland Pfalz, where Mike Selinger's parents, Karl and Ursula, met, were married and found themselves planning a new life together.
Having witnessed the atrocities of World War II, they hoped to move to the United States to start afresh — and to create a restaurant that served German food and culture.
Like preparing a good meal, the process took a while. The Selingers moved to Maryland in the late 1950s, worked a succession of jobs in and around Anne Arundel County, and after about 20 years had saved enough to buy the old tavern on West Central Road in Edgewater.
The sturdy A-frame was already historic. It had been built as a private home in the 1890s, only to be converted into a general store, then the first gas station in southern Anne Arundel. The elder Selingers hung up their shingle — actually, a sign that still bears a crest that reads "Old Stein Inn" — in 1983.
With Karl as chef and manager, Ursula as hostess and bookkeeper, they crafted a menu that included German breads, sausages and beers, served three meals a day and hired wait staff who got to know customers by their first names, often staying on for years.
The atmosphere drew a growing clientele, especially among servicepeople and Germanophiles.
"I'd been in the Army in Bavaria for three years, and I was homesick for the country," says Eilenberg, a part-time federal government employee who lives in Annapolis. While there, "we used to love just heading out in any direction, knowing there would be a really nice Gasthaus [guest house] to find — immaculately clean, reasonably priced, a place with simple, well-prepared food. As soon as I walked into the Old Stein, I felt that kind of atmosphere."
Eilenberg and his family soon got to know the 30 or so others who went weekly or more, bonding at communal tables over sturdy meals and cold brew.
The group included Carla Duls, a retired county schoolteacher, and her husband, Jim, a technician at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, who came to try the fare in 1997, fell in love with little touches (the tin ceiling and mounted deer heads were favorites) and ended up befriending regulars and staff members like Susan Belden.
"The Stein is an incredibly warm place, and everyone is so tight-knit," says Belden, who celebrated her 10th anniversary working at the place last month. "The right sort of people seem to gravitate toward it."
The Duls became such regulars that they eventually found themselves giving the staff a heads-up in advance if they weren't going to make one of "their" nights.
Many watched as Mike Selinger grew from a table-waiting teen into a college graduate, then returned to run the place starting in 1995. Now 41, Mike built on tradition, expanding the menu of German beers to 10, adding live music (a strolling accordionist, Silvey Eberley, as well as a variety of oom-pah bands) and, most important, enlarging the kitchen enough to be able to open the outdoor biergarten that has become a major draw, complete with patio heaters, brewery signs and a policy that allows guests to sing as loud as they want and stay for hours.
During festivals, the place can draw 400 people a night, and customers are known to wait three hours for a table.
Not that they mind much. "You're spending time with friends and drinking beer," says Eilenberg. "It's not exactly hardship."
Melted glass
It's tough, though, surveying what's left after a three-alarm fire. The catastrophic New Year's weekend has passed, and Beth and Mike Selinger meet a visitor out front on a chilly, overcast morning.
Still looking dazed, they offer hot tea and think out loud.
"We couldn't even talk about this before today," says Mike, who has just returned from a stress-busting session at the gym. "Now that the adrenaline has settled down a little, we're just starting to be able to think clearly."
From the outside, it doesn't look like a total loss. Blue tarps cover holes in the roof, several windows are boarded up, and a red Dumpster obstructs the front door, but the front and west end seem relatively untouched.
"She put up a good fight," Mike says.
Officials are still investigating the cause of the fire, though it appears to have started as a result of faulty wiring just below the second-floor office.
A man driving by saw smoke pouring from the building just after 5:30 a.m. and called 911. Emergency workers were on the scene within four minutes. Forty pieces of equipment and 89 firefighters made it to the scene, according to Lt. Cliff Kooser, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, including crews from the city of Annapolis and the U.S. Naval Academy.
Because only well water is available along that stretch of the Mayo peninsula, they ran hoses three-quarters of a mile down Mayo Ridge Road, drawing water from Ramsay Lake on the South River. Some were on the scene until 11 a.m.
"Everyone was just incredible, exceedingly professional," Beth Selinger says. "We're so thankful for the heroic efforts."
Still, a walk inside shows what the owners face. In the dining room, Tiffany-style glass lamps have melted, flame-charred beams look ready to cave and sky is visible through gaping holes in the roof. (The kitchen is largely intact.)
Firefighters said the 1930s-era tin ceiling likely slowed the spread of flames. Word of the incident spread more quickly, rousing the support of a community.
"Just read the news this morning. Wonderful restaurant and wonderful people," John Creath of Pasadena wrote on the inn's Facebook page even as the fire was raging. "Hope you all can come back from this. [I'm] looking forward to visiting again in the new year."
"Wishing you the best in your rebuild," Carol Mitchel Baynes of Deale added at 9:24 a.m., when firefighters were tamping down embers. "My daughter is hoping you will re-open by her birthday in June. It's a family tradition to celebrate in the Biergarten!"
"Your establishment is more than a local gem to my family. ... It has become the other roof under which we all gather," wrote Shane Sondergard of St. Mary's County in midafternoon — by which time a crowd of friends and neighbors were on the scene comforting the Selingers.
More than two dozen came out the next day to help them shovel out a foot of charred debris.
"A lot of days when you come here to work, you think you're just going to your job," says Beth Selinger, shivering a bit in the chill. "Believe me, we wish this had never happened. But it has been remarkable to learn what this place means to people. They come here to celebrate life."
At a loss
The business may be closed, but the Selingers have no time to rest.
They've been calling vendors to cancel orders. The phone rings around the clock. As they down the last of their tea, an official in a county car pulls in, chats gravely with the owners, then drives off.
The thought of rebuilding — inspections, permits, construction and more — daunts the Selingers.
"It has been made clear to us that this will not happen overnight," Mike says, adding that if the weather holds and everything else goes smoothly, it's his intention to be back in business in time for Mayfest, one of their busiest times of the year.
He said patrons can keep an eye on the Facebook page for updates.
In the meantime, the sense of loss is as gaping as the holes in the roof.
The Stein's 10 full-time staffers have yet to find temporary work. (Whatever happens, Belden says she'll return when the restaurant reopens.) Eilenberg misses the game dishes served during winters, the bartenders who know what he drinks, the endless rounds of German songs.
"A bedrock has been removed," he says.
And Carla Duls and her regular group? They're still trying to figure out where to get together during the next few months.
All she can say is she's looking forward to the spring.
"I love our friends, but to be honest with you, if I can't go to the Old Stein, I don't want to go out," she says. "Around here, there's just no place like it."