History of the Bären Gonten

Our medieval vaulted cellar and the centuries-old wooden beams bear witness to this: this house has been an important part of the small Appenzell village of Gonten not only since yesterday.

It is considered the oldest private building in the community. A Bären inn is first mentioned in a document in 1751. At that time the innkeepers were called Johann Bartholome Blatter and Maria Genovefa Wissmann. Their three sons all became priests. Their daughter Katharina also took her vows in the Benedictine monastery of Fahr.

In the 18th century, various landlords ran the restaurant mostly on the side. They were also lifeguards in the Gontenbad, took care of administrative tasks in the district and served as church caretakers. From 1793 Anton Joseph Fässler, known as “Müllers-Stanzli”, probably catered for guests in the Bären.

His nickname came from his time as a miller at the Rohrersmühle (today’s location of the Jakobsbad spa). In 1816 the widowed former Bären landlady Maria Magdalena Joseph Dominika Signer ran the house for two years.

Subsequently, there were various changes of tenant and owner until the 112-year-long era of Gmünder began in 1895. Johann Karl Gmünder bought the inn for 21,000 Swiss francs and a tip of 100 Swiss francs. The last generation, Charly and Silvia Gmünder, took over the management in 1980. At the end of the 1990s, the restaurant was always awarded 15 points by GaultMillau. In 2009, Charly Gmünder had the honour of cooking for all the Federal Councillors at the Bernerhof in Berne at the end of the presidential year of Federal Councillor Hans-Rudolf Merz.