On Friday morning, days after learning that the rent would increase at his Bywater biergarten, Sven Vorkauf gathered his staff to announce that Bratz Y’all! would close on May 31, ending nine years of German food, beer and live music on Piety Street.
“I really gave my heart to this place,” Vorkauf said shortly afterward. “I’m 55, and have to start all over again.”
Its closure marks the end of the only German restaurant in New Orleans, decades after the city lost Kolb’s, which served German fare on St. Charles Avenue from 1899 to 1994…