Located near the base of Heavenly, Himmel Haus has evolved from an après-ski party spot to a bona fide German restaurant behind the efforts of two longtime pals

Editor’s note: This story contains the subject of suicide. 

On a long Tahoe summer evening when the sun refuses to go to bed, three families sit down at one of the long communal tables in the oversized, yet still seemingly compact, dining area of Himmel Haus.

The South Lake Tahoe restaurant near the base of Heavenly is a place owner David Graham-Armstrong describes as “not right on the beaten path.”

Patrons enjoy great food and beer at Himmel Haus

“You have to get there by design,” he says. 

This might be the perfect way to describe Himmel Haus wholesale. It’s an unlikely independent Bavarian restaurant hiding in plain sight at the base of a giant mountain owned and operated by a mega-conglomerate.

Walk in, and you notice right away it’s not your typical $25 hamburger, California-fusion small-plates menu or forgettable-yet-filling wood-fired pizza affair associated with handy ski-in, ski-out villages.

Instead, Himmel Haus is a completely ambitious and autonomous affair, and the menu, rife with old-world German favorites featuring local flourishes, isn’t enough to signal that the atmosphere, the vibe and even the patrons themselves tell the rest of the story. 

On this particular evening, the three local families are there for what seems to be a weekly ritual: ski team in the winter, soccer in the fall, baseball in the spring. 

The Bavarian pretzel, which comes in large or mini, is served with house-made three cheese mustard fondue and bacon-onion jam

Now they’re catching up on vacations far from the vacationland they happen to call home as the kids, device-free, poke at the appetizers—soft, warm Bavarian pretzels and mini buckets of fries, called Belgian Frites, as the adults skip the early courses and set their sights on foamy liters of hefeweizen and pilsner. 

It is, for the moment, a perfectly relaxed, controlled environment. The group, not too noisy and nearly too comfortable with the surroundings, has the enviable appearance of folks who’ve truly settled into their mountain-town groove. 

This intersection and steady cadence and hum of Himmel Haus is perhaps exactly what founders, co-owners and longtime best friends Zak Latzka and Graham-Armstrong set out to accomplish in July 2012, when they first flicked the light to “open” and welcomed curious passersby. 

Friends From the Start

Graham-Armstrong moved from his Southern California home to attend San Francisco State University in 1997. He immediately became interested in restaurants and clubs around the city and began working low-end jobs with whoever would take him. 

After training as a bartender at the now defunct Kuleto’s restaurant in Union Square, he met Latzka at Loft 11, another former but once vibrant nightlife staple in the SoMa district that drew the best and brightest of the first dot-com boom.  

Himmel Haus co-owners and longtime friends David Graham-Armstrong, left, and Zak Latzka, courtesy photo

From there the pair became inseparable, bouncing from gig to gig and working their way up the San Francisco nightlife scene. But burnout eventually set in as the dot-com era went belly up, and Graham-Armstrong took a break and moved to New York in 2005.

Living in Brooklyn and working in and around Manhattan, he eventually lured his buddy Latzka to the Big Apple, where they decided they’d make a go at opening a place together. 

“We tried to get a bar going on the Lower East Side, and he lived with me for a year, but it didn’t work out,” says Graham-Armstrong.

The friends briefly parted ways with no hard feelings, and Latzka made haste back to the West Coast, ending up in South Lake Tahoe. Feeling he had more to do on the East Coast, Graham-Armstrong stayed behind until one day he got a call. 

“Zak went to Tahoe to ski and hike the PCT,” Graham-Armstrong recalls. “He found this spot and decided on the concept. He says, ‘Hey, I found our spot. It’s not New York, but I came back out here.’ And that was it. That was Himmel Haus.”

Beginning of a Bavarian Tradition

Manhattan to Tahoe sounds like a big change, and it was, Graham-Armstrong admits, but he didn’t have to be asked twice to load up and move out to help his partner get his new project off the ground, sight unseen.

Asked if he even paused to think about making the move, he laughs and says, “Not at all.”

“I love South Lake,” says Graham-Armstrong. “I grew up in San Diego, but my grandparents had a cabin out here, so I’m familiar with South Lake. I think it’s beautiful. New York was great and fun and exciting—it [was] a good experience in the industry in my late 20s. But I don’t know if I was ready to make that my home. This is a great place to raise a family. I’m kind of active. I like to be outside. That kind of lifestyle is perfect.”

Himmel Haus features an extensive selection of German beers on tap

Latzka and Graham-Armstrong, along with a third business partner, Matt Eastling, grew Himmel Haus from the ground up.  

Industry veterans on the bar side, they knew how to spin up a party. And from day one, the club promoter instincts kicked in when it came to getting big groups to pack a 5,000-square-foot two-story building in the heart of the Heavenly Valley neighborhood.

They knew right away if someone came in and felt the vibe, they’d probably stay. It was just a matter of releasing would-be patrons from the clutches of the resort premises.

The answer: What else? A party bus. 

“Oh, it was great. Zak and Matt had this idea: We got this little bus and painted it like a German flag,” Graham-Armstrong recalls, laughing. “We were going to find people and shuttle them to the restaurant and party. It was genius! I knew we were going to do great. We got the right people involved. All [our] other spots were successful, and we were committed to making it work. The hours weren’t easy at the beginning: 14 hours a day, seven days a week. But that’s what we’re used to. It was a fun project.”

From Party Scene to German Cuisine

A funny thing happened at Himmel Haus. In its early days, it was sort of a stand-on-a-table-in-your-unbuckled-Solomons-and-boogie-down-to-1980s-remixes place, where you’d maybe take a moment to shove a brat or two down your gullet before rejoining the party.

And then, ever so slowly, it evolved into the destination it is today—known for real-deal, finely tuned, made-from-scratch German standards.

The pork schnitzel served with rotkohl and mashed potatoes and smothered in Jäger sauce

That work on the food program and surfacing from the club atmosphere (though, yes, it still can get aprés-rowdy, especially on busy weekends) was both by happenstance and design—and, once again, is a symbol of a couple of friends’ growth and maturation process, both personally and in the business world.

“Cooking wasn’t necessarily our passion,” Graham-Armstrong says. “We started the concept that [Latzka] initially wanted, just like brats and beers next to the mountain—a ski party scene. But it turned into a restaurant. We developed a menu, worked it over time, tried to source as many local things as we could.” 

The result was a sort of found passion for German cooking that not only boosted the restaurant’s reputation but ended up carrying it through Tahoe’s lean seasons—and established it as not just a place to go throw down on the weekends but a true center of the community.

“We [had] this concept of après-ski, then started with schnitzel and roasted meat dishes,” Graham-Armstrong says. “Zak and I would roast a whole pig and play around with a lot of old German recipes. We learned things that we could execute and keep the same quality and not waste food.” 

Through trial and error and years of honing and perfecting, they came up with a menu featuring what could be described as German favorites with some signature Himmel Haus flourishes. 

The Schweinshaxe features a Kurobuta pork shank slow-braised in Märzen beer with sauerkraut and Dijon, served on a bed of mashed potatoes and rotkohl

Favorites include the kaze spatzle, which is house-made pasta topped with a crust of Swiss, Gouda, white cheddar and pretzel breadcrumbs, as well as the curry wurst, a choice of sausage covered in Himmel Haus’ curry ketchup.

“The sausages we source locally,” Graham-Armstrong says. “Pretzels are our recipe made at Truckee Sourdough [Company]. The sauces are made in-house and take hours to make. The bacon jam you have to simmer for hours in low heat. Everything on a German menu takes time and care.”

Over time, the menu and the time and care that goes into it took over. Himmel Haus became a gold standard for German cuisine on Tahoe’s South Shore.  

“We get Germans in here often,” Graham-Armstrong says. “They always have really good feedback. They’re surprised. We might have a little bit of a California twist on our food, but they recognize it as homemade, from scratch. That’s always the biggest compliment.”

Tribute to a Best Friend

With the restaurant gaining in popularity and reputation and the business humming last spring, the crew at Himmel Haus felt like the best days were upon it. 

But then, one mid-March evening in 2025, Latzka bid the crew, and his best friend and business partner, farewell and wasn’t heard from the next day.

Graham-Armstrong got the phone call. 

Owner David Graham-Armstrong pours a beer on a Thursday night

He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts about the person he spent the most time with in his adult life—a quarter century of friendship, partnership, successes, failures, through all the late nights and early mornings, the breakups and found love and every misstep. They’d lived it and endured. This, he says, was supposed to be their moment.

Finally, he inhales, takes a beat, and lets it all out. 

“He committed suicide,” he says. “It’s a really hard pill to swallow. I miss him all the time. There are so many good memories. He was a really lively person, a really happy person. It caught me by surprise. I was so close to him. I figured I would have known. … I had to step back and take some time. I didn’t want to be in a restaurant and be crying somewhere in the corner when people are trying to talk to me. It’s not a good look for the service industry.”

He lets out a laugh, and another pause, and then picks up again

“Zak’s parents are amazing people. They helped out a bunch. Matt has helped out and stepped in a lot. Having support and getting through it has helped me and us survive through this. I hope to carry on through this and maybe make it an honor to his last big project. He had a great mind for concepts and creativity. I think making this place survive and be successful would be a great tribute to him.”

A Heartfelt Toast

I lingered long into the evening on my latest visit to Himmel Haus. I enjoyed my standard order that’s been the same for the last decade-plus: a pretzel, brat and beer. 

I know the menu has expanded over time. And I know there’s more to life than beer and brats, as Graham-Armstrong points out. 

A flight of beers on its way to a thirsty customer

As I sat and enjoyed my order, I couldn’t help but think of Latzka and the folks who somehow, without explanation, leave us along the way—and, perhaps appropriately, the comfort their legacies leave in their wake. 

I thought about the words Latzka’s sister, Sophia, wrote in his obituary in the Tahoe Daily Tribune: “You were a beam of light on this earth, always there for others. Always carrying the biggest smile in the room. I will now carry your light with me, keep the biggest smile I can, and make sure to stay young and playful at heart, for you.”  

As I sat lost in thought, one of the families at the neighboring table had ordered me another beer. When I looked around to see who had done it, one of the dads stood up, gave a wink and held up his own stein, toasting to friends, family, the long summer evening and living on the edge of the deep blue. 

Somehow, that simple gesture felt more like a tribute, or even longing. Maybe it was. 

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, know that help is available. Call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. It’s free and confidential 24 hours a day in the U.S. and Canada. 

Andrew Pridgen is a journalist and former Tahoe resident who now lives on the Central Coast.