According to historic record, there was already a “vaulted cellar” with Bollenstein floors at today’s Adlerkeller around 1490. After the village fire of 1560, a new house was built around 1562 on the foundations of the previous building. The Adler vaulted cellar is not a cellar in the true sense. In the late Middle Ages, the square in front of what was then the Oberegger House was about three meters lower. From the entrance to the house you went straight to the Sitter River, where there was a covered wooden bridge.

Over the centuries and with the new construction of the Metzi Bridge (1845), the square in front of the restaurant “zum Schwarzen Adler” was christened Adlerplatz. Since then, Adlerplatz has been continuously raised, so that the ground floor seemed to “sink” lower and lower.

That’s why our ancestors – especially Johann Leu-Broger – decided in 1956 to sink or fill up the Black Eagle and its ground floor. The foundation stone was thus laid to open the first garden terrace in the village of Appenzell on August 1, 1957.

Within four months, towards the end of 2009, a total of 3 m3 of earth was carted out with a lot of sweat and passion. For Franz Leu-Kralj, his wife Boza Leu-Kralj and their sons Clemens, Lorenz & Matjaz, it was a matter of the heart to create space for new ideas. Layers of glass (a total of 4 cm thick) were placed on a steel framework above the Bollenstein. Oak strip parquet was laid to the left and right of the glass.

The original height of Adlerplatz from 1845 can be clearly seen today at the “Zigarren Fritsche’s” house. At that time there were no stairs to the shop, today’s Hungsügl, but straight into the building.