Late at night in our apartment on the ground level of a house in Rua do Norte, Ericeira, my girlfriend Svea and I were rudely awakened by a thunder like noise. It wasn’t the first time. Our bedroom was located on the roadside of the house. The street outside and the floor in our bedroom were basically the same floor just separated by the wall of the building. Whenever a car came down the paved road the noise was enormous and shook our entire bedroom. “It’s like sleeping on a Rasthof” I said to Svea.
A Rasthof is a big service station at the Autobahn in Germany. They have gas, restaurants and huge parking lots. Low budged travelers or truckers even stay overnight at these places. Good luck to find sleep on those Rasthofs when right next to you the cars and trucks fly by without speed limit. From my long journeys on a bus or car back in the days, I remeber a Rasthof as an eagerly awaited place to fuel up and rest and waik the asleep body up again.
At that night Svea and I were laughing out loud and in the next days Rasthof was the running gag. “What’s for dinner in Rasthof today” Svea asked. Suddenly she looked at me and… “RASTHOF, that’s the name for your future gastro bar”.

Hereby RASTHOF was born and now the exciting journey begins.