The Cuckoo restaurant remains empty four years after it closed

Four years after the final stein was poured and the last smorgasbord lunch dished up, the much-loved The Cuckoo restaurant remains empty. Olinda locals are desperate for a rescue buyer to emerge.

“What happened to The Cuckoo?” is a question Olinda trader Marquita Telford hears every week from an interested tourist.

Visitors to the Dandenong Ranges are often still shocked to hear the beloved Melbourne institution is no longer operating – the kooky smorgasbord restaurant shut its doors in 2021 when Covid hit, ending 62 years of trading.

It was the end of an era for thousands of Melburnians who had visited the Bavarian-themed restaurant for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and parties.

Guests over the years enjoyed a live floor show including performances from international artists and the restaurant’s famous yodeller.

There was also the ringing of the cow bells and dancing, and of course picking dishes from the smorgasbord, including sauerkraut, goulash, German sausages, schnitzels, apple strudel, fried duck, doughnuts and pancakes served from a big wok.

The famous smorgasbord at The Cuckoo.

Customers serve themselves at the smorgasbord.

But the arrival of Covid and the absence of international tourists, who used to arrive by the bus load, led to The Cuckoo’s demise.

Former manager Andrei Koeppen, whose parents Karin and Willi Koeppen started the restaurant in 1958, said the loss of international tourists, combined with lockdowns and restrictions on buffet dining, made it too hard for the business to survive.

The closure of The Cuckoo, which is now back up for sale, was a big blow to local businesses.

Ms Telford, the owner of store Rubies and Rust, said if she had the money she’d buy The Cuckoo in a second.

She said it would be incredible for the town to have it reopen.

“It’s a tourist attraction and we’re a tourist town,” she said.

Ms Telford said a reopened Cuckoo could do for Olinda what the Billson’s Brewery had done for Beechworth.

“It would bring people here, it would be a destination, it would also bring Airbnb stayers here — it would be amazing for the local economy.”

Staff at The Cuckoo enjoying Oktoberfest.

Ms Telford said local businesses were doing it tough without a major drawcard.

“As far as the town goes it’s really quiet and it’s a real hard struggle, but I think that’s retail in general,” she said.

“The town of Olinda – once The Cuckoo shut it really did affect us a lot, but people are still coming and people still ask every week “What happened to The Cuckoo?”.

“It is an institution.”

Keeping the Bavarian theme of The Cuckoo would be fantastic but Ms Telford believed the restaurant needed to be modernised under a new owner.

Everyone had a memory of visiting the restaurant, she said.

“As a kid at Olinda Primary I used to go and sell flowers there as a fundraiser,” she said.

“It is such a big part of the local community.”

Musicians entertaining guests.

Tania Williams from nearby business The Olinda Collective agreed the town needed “a bit of life”.

Ms Williams said another longstanding Olinda business, Mangana, had also just closed after 41 years.

“It is sitting vacant at the moment the same as The Cuckoo,” she said.

“It still is really busy on a Sunday (in Olinda), but during the week when the sun isn’t out and shining it is pretty dead.

“We need a bit of life that’s for sure.”

Ms Williams said she believed people would like to see The Cuckoo back up and running “and not totally different to how it used to be" although it had become old-fashioned.

The barbecue area at The Cuckoo in 1982.

Former Cuckoo employee Dianne Sharrock has great memories of her time at the restaurant.

“It was around 1975 when I first started working at the Cuckoo, a young Aussie girl, innocent to drinking and wearing blouses that were a bit “low” in the front — my mum would have never approved if she saw it,” she said.

“But the owners were very nice and forgave my ignorance of their wonderful culture. The chef always made us food before our shift, and her Vienna schnitzel was to die for (she would scold us if we took more than one piece) and her black forest cake!

“The first night I was told to go hold hands with my table and sing along, I felt very shy but the customers were wonderful and sang the words loudly at me so I could learn them. Songs like Eins Zwei G’Suffa and Ein Prosit sticks in my mind even now after all these years. “Cheers to our happy togetherness” is what they told me it basically means.

“Fun times and great memories indeed. I was sad when my parents moved to a new area and I had to say goodbye.”

The Cuckoo was originally The Quamby, which started in 1904 as a small tea room on the road to Olinda before Karin and Willi Koeppen purchased it in 1958.

At the time, Willi was Australia’s most famous ‘MasterChef’ with regular TV and radio shows.

While executive chef at a five-star hotel in Melbourne, he met Karin, in a bar on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders streets.

Willi disappeared in 1976 and has never been found.

Karin Koeppen with her daughter Daniela Koeppen-Rosenfeld.

Willi disappeared in 1976 and the case remains an open investigation with the Victoria Police Missing Persons division.

Renowned crime writer Andrew Rule said the disappearance of Willi was one of the most tantalising mysteries in Australian crime history.

“And yet it has never formally been proven to be a crime, as there is no body, no sign of violence and no one has ever been charged over Koeppen’s fate,” he said.

Karin, 87, died in 2022 after battling Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

The Cuckoo was bought by Eric Walters who revealed plans in 2023 to give the restaurant a fresh new look while retaining its charm.

It reopened for takeaway, selling coffees and gourmet toasties.

But now the restaurant is for sale again, with a price guide of $3.6m.

Staff get into the spirit of Oktoberfest.

Elliot Bell, director of Bell Real Estate Belgrave, said recent media exposure about the sale had attracted interest from potential buyers overseas and interstate.

Mr Bell said he believed the site would continue running as a restaurant under a new owner.

“It has substantial infrastructure geared that way,” he said.

“The kitchen facilities and the way the restaurant floorplan is laid out already it makes sense to continue doing it that way.

“Whether you continue doing it in a similar way to what The Cuckoo was doing or a new style, there is a massive amount of potential there.”

Many Melburnians have fond memories of The Cuckoo.

Mr Bell said so many people had great memories of The Cuckoo.

“There are quite a lot of people I speak to who have worked there in their youth, dined there, some people have met their husband or wife there, there’s all sorts of stories we’re hearing,” he said.

“Provided you had everything signed off and ready to go you could pretty much open the restaurant, do a marketing campaign, and you’d have bus loads of people coming up again because of the (Cuckoo) name.

“It’s one of those properties that people know the name of the actual restaurant, they don’t even know the street address, they know the site as The Cuckoo – there is so much prestige in that name.

Winter at The Cuckoo.

“From the time it opened in 1958 until it closed it was just busy all the time,” Mr Bell said.

“It’s just an incredible opportunity to get a commercial site in the area that is so substantial.

“To even just get that building approved again, I don’t think you’d be able to.

“It’s just incredibly rare – it’s an amazing site, really solid structure, it just needs a new owner to breathe new life into it.”

The Cuckoo is not the only quirky Melbourne restaurant to close its doors over the years.

The Swagman, Smorgy’s and the Eltham Barrel are all no longer operating.

Save the Dandenongs League vice president Carolyn Ebdon, also president of the Dandenong Ranges National Trust Branch, said The Cuckoo was a hills institution that everyone would like to see continue.

“We need someone to come and take it over with the same amount of flair that the (Koeppen) family had for so long,” she said.