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The history of the Schützenhaus

Hardly any pub in our town can look back on such a long tradition as the "Alte Schützenhaus" on the Steig.
In 1537, a first, simple shooting house had been built on this site. The town's hand rifle club (today's Stadtschützengesellschaft), founded around 1443, finally had a place to practice that was ideally situated at the time - after shooting had first taken place on the Emmersberg near the Munot and later in the Lindli (across the Rhine!).
As early as 1540, only three years after the construction of the aforementioned building, the council - much to the displeasure of the city's hospitality industry - granted the Schützen tavern rights for their house, thus ushering in what would soon become 450 years of economic tradition at this location.

The special location of the new tavern, well outside the city gates, was of course not without consequences: Largely removed from the control of the city's guard, it soon became a place of extensive and lively carousing, so that the authorities, especially during the first hundred years, more than once felt compelled to raise their admonishing finger against rampant debauchery and to remind everyone that the Schützenhaus was basically built not just for poker, but also for shooting.

From about 1650 onwards, the complaints about the apparently dilapidated condition of the house increased. However, the council kept postponing appropriate measures; it was not until March 1685 that it finally took the decisive decision to completely rebuild the building. Thus, under the then city architect Emanuel Stimmer, the present state-owned and representative building with its charming little bell tower, the polygonal stair tower and the large banqueting hall on the first floor came into being.

As with the first Schützenhaus on the Steig, the new, larger building housed the military and armoury on the ground floor, and later a police station for a time, while the real showpiece of the house, the banqueting hall (with its 25 stuccoed coat of arms reliefs of former shooting masters), was located on the first floor. Until 1925, the "Schützenhaus" was exclusively used as a restaurant on the upper floor and, in fine weather in summer, also in the garden under the lime trees. It was not until the major interior renovation at the beginning of the 1920s, under the direction of the legendary architect Otto Vogler, that the service rooms were moved to the ground floor and opened for business on 19 December 1925.

A further comprehensive renovation of the property was carried out in 1950 under master builder Gottlob Haug, but only a few years later, the unfortunate fire of 27 November 1957 largely destroyed the results. The will to preserve the striking building, which has remained with us as one of the old landmarks of Schaffhausen's military readiness, has nevertheless proved strong enough, even in the face of rubble and ashes, to ensure the continued existence of this building with its long and eventful tradition.

Modern times

The Reutimann family takes over