Spring is here, and for sausage aficionados that means one thing: the reopening of Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe’s outdoor grill cart, which fires up the Saturday after Mother’s Day—or possibly sooner—and reemerges every Saturday, weather permitting, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. through October. Owners Wolfgang and Carla Büchler opened their business in 1975 and have been running the grill cart for just over 20 years. Early on, Carla says, they struggled to find authentic German products to stock their deli counter. Then, serendipity stepped in. “Our children went to a German school and it turned out the biology teacher was also a butcher,” she says. “His family had Binkert’s, near Baltimore. They brought samples to us and they were great.” Heidelberg now receives weekly Binkert’s deliveries of traditional German cold cuts—liverwurst, gelbwurst, bierwurst—as well as the packaged sausages they sell in the store and hot off the grill outside. The latter offerings include bauernwurst, bratwurst, Debrizener, knackwurst and weisswurst. “There are no fillers in our sausages. Just meat!,” says Wolfgang, who cheerily tends the grill with his son Alexander and nephew Nathan Smith. Stuffed into a warm, split soft roll and topped with brown mustard and house-made sauerkraut, the lightly charred links make a perfect Saturday indulgence—and a bargain at $6.95 apiece. Add warm German potato salad and a flaky apple strudel to your order before hitting the picnic tables.
2150 N. Culpeper St., Arlington, heidelbergbakery.com