Fifty-three years after it was founded by a French soldier, Berlin's legendary Paris Bar that hosted stars like Madonna and Leonardo DiCaprio risks closing because of crushing debts and a criminal investigation.
Having been a firm fixture in the showbiz pages for years, the bistro on Kantstrasse in the west of the once divided city hit the headlines for the wrong reasons after tax inspectors swooped last month.
It is being investigated for tax arrears, unpaid social charges and employing illegal immigrants, according to prosecutors in Berlin.
On top of that, the Paris Bar owes its creditors more than US$1.17 million, the legal administrators say.
"We don't know the exact sum but it is going to be hard to pay," the Austrian owner Michel Wuerthle, 72, said.
"We are expecting a group of friends of the Paris Bar to put in an offer that will satisfy some of our creditors," added Wuerthle, who has been running the bistro for the past quarter of a century with fellow Austrian Reinald Nohal, 67.
The pair took over the restaurant in 1979, ten years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It has been famous since the 1950s when it was run by Frenchman Jean Coupy, who settled in Berlin with his wife, a Danish opera singer.
After his death it was taken over by his nephew until it was bought by the two Austrians who made the bar the place to go for visiting Hollywood stars, particularly during the annual Berlinale film festival.
At times it has proven too small to accommodate Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro and the regular flock of German show business personalities and politicians like former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, prompting the odd outbreak of bad behavior.
Madonna famously threw a tantrum when she was told she could not have the last table because it was reserved for veteran actress Gina Lollobrigida who was attending the Berlinale.
"Who the fuck is Gina Lollobrigida?" she demanded, but nonetheless sat down for long enough to have a drink before the other star appeared, Wuerthle said.
The success of the bistro, where clients are greeted with a French bonjour or bonsoir, was such that Wuerthle in 2001 opened a bar in a neighboring building called Le Bar du Paris Bar.
The mushrooming of hip bars in the newly re-united Berlin added to the bar's financial woes, dragging down the entire enterprise, which employs 49 people.
Shortly before the visit by the tax inspectors, Nohal resigned during a meeting of the associates but Wuerthle says he will not follow suit.
"It is my life's work. I do not know anybody else who could keep it going," he said, adding that the bar and the restaurant continued to serve customers as though nothing had happened.
He said he hoped all the interested parties could come to an agreement to save the establishment.
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