Hotel, restaurant and beer garden
It all began in the mid-1990s on the other side of the street from our current location with a small guest house with three rooms, which was primarily intended to accommodate the first ERKA-Reisen tourists, including a restaurant. ERKA-Reisen is the German tourism pioneer in post-Soviet Georgia and has been guiding mainly German-speaking tourists through the country in the Caucasus since 1993. The founder of ERKA-Reisen, German TV journalist Rainer Kaufmann, visited Georgia, then still part of the USSR, for the first time at Christmas 1989 and spontaneously decided to open up the country to sustainable individual tourism. Given the paucity of small guesthouses and hotels, this was not possible without his own investment.
Word soon got around, especially among the small community of foreigners in Tbilisi, about the special quality of food and service in our restaurant, which American and German regulars simply called “Rainers Cafe” in reference to “Rick’s Cafe” from the popular post-war film “Casablanca” in view of the politically tense times at the time. We have remained true to this name and mission to this day.
When the available space was no longer sufficient in view of the growing number of tourists, the couple Gabi and Rainer Kaufmann invested in the opening of the Hotel Kartli at its current location in 1999, with a total of 12 guest rooms, a restaurant and beer garden. One of the few foreign medium-sized family businesses from back then that still exists in Georgia today. Hence its reputation: a good piece of Germany in Georgia. Incidentally, we are particularly proud of this: Some of our kitchen and service staff have been loyal to our company for almost two decades and with Natia Kodiashvili, a managing director has emerged who can take over the company and thus lead it into a secure future, also in terms of jobs. And all this true to our motto: German quality and Georgian hospitality.