The drunk mistake in a Bay Space bar that despatched Apple right into a frenzy

It additionally set off a media frenzy exterior Volker Staudt’s German beer corridor, a mere 20 miles from Apple’s Infinite Loop headquarters.

“We’d have information crews come from all around the globe, and the one factor we instructed them is we’re not going to offer interviews concerning the telephone,” Staudt instructed SFGATE, sitting alongside his spouse and co-owner Mary Ann of their yard beer backyard.

In reality, the Staudts have by no means talked concerning the iPhone incident, till at the moment.

“It actually introduced Apple safety down,” Volker mentioned.

Gourmand Haus Staudt began as a flower store within the Nineteen Seventies and added a beer corridor and beer backyard three a long time later earlier than changing into a part of Bay Space tech lore in 2010. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
Gourmand Haus Staudt began as a flower store within the Nineteen Seventies and added a beer corridor and beer backyard three a long time later earlier than changing into a part of Bay Space tech lore in 2010. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Volker’s mother and father, Lothar and Lucie Staudt, opened Gourmand Haus Staudt in 1974 as Flower Haus Staudt. The Staudts moved from Germany to America when Volker was a 1-year-old, and so they bought flowers regionally (together with to Joe Montana, Volker boasts) till a Safeway opened a block away within the early ’80s. That pressured them to desert flowers and pivot to German specialty items — assume concrete deers, plastic dwarves and varied Deutschland sundries — which the Staudts nonetheless promote at the moment at 2615 Broadway. Volker took over the household enterprise in 2007, leaving a high-paying job as a superintendent in industrial building for what he anticipated to be possibly a yr, tops. “The grocery retailer was simply not a really thrilling enterprise,” he mentioned.

Stressed along with his new line of labor, Volker — who graduated from Sequoia Excessive College simply across the nook — tinkered with turning the grocery store’s storage room right into a bar.

“Actually, folks have been sitting on noticed horses earlier than I used to be even carried out,” mentioned Volker, whose handiwork became what may be the Bay Space’s most genuine German beer corridor. “Then the factor began getting widespread as a result of proper at first, that man left his prototype iPhone.”

Because the story goes, Powell’s telephone was swiped by the patron sitting subsequent to him on the bar, Brian Hogan, who has mentioned he initially tried to return it to the unique proprietor after pondering it to be nothing greater than a misplaced iPhone 3GS. “I assumed it was simply an iPhone 3GS. It simply regarded like one,” he’d eventually tell Gizmodo. “I attempted the digicam, but it surely crashed thrice.”

The day after he snagged the telephone, it was remotely bricked (principally ceasing all telephone capabilities), main Hogan to take a better look and rapidly understand one thing was completely different. There was a digicam on the entrance. Two barcodes on the again. The outside didn’t really feel proper. So he determined to attempt to make a buck, buying it to numerous tech blogs earlier than ultimately promoting it to Gizmodo for $5,000. “You’re looking at Apple’s subsequent iPhone. It was discovered misplaced in a bar in Redwood Metropolis,” Jason Chen started in a Gizmodo piece published April 19, 2010, earlier than an never-ending scroll of explanations detailing why it was, the truth is, the yet-to-be-released iPhone 4.

“Earlier than the Gizmodo story got here out, Grey was an everyday, and he stored calling daily saying, ‘Have you ever discovered a telephone? Have you ever discovered a telephone? ’ ‘Grey, no, we haven’t, but when we discover one, we’ll let you understand,’” Mary Ann recounts.

“He was panicking. I used to be like, ‘It’s simply an iPhone. Go purchase one other one, dude,’” Volker mentioned, laughing.

After the Gizmodo story dropped, protection adopted that night with an outing of each the bar the place it was misplaced (Gourmand Haus Staudt) and the Apple worker who misplaced it (Powell), a leak that’s arduous to even quantify at this level.

Within the late 2000s and early 2010s, Apple’s next-gen iPhone releases on the Worldwide Builders Convention in San Francisco carried the sort of devout following normally solely reserved for Lionel Messi or Taylor Swift. And this explicit launch would convey with it every kind of superlatives — it was the thinnest smartphone on the planet on the time, it was the primary iPhone with a front-facing digicam and Apple’s state-of-the-art Retina show and, crucially, it will stay Apple’s flagship telephone for a then-record 15 months.

Volker mentioned the Staudts’ residence telephone began ringing proper across the media blitz — a 5 a.m. name that startled the couple awake.

“We received a name from Channel 7 Information,” Volker mentioned. “They mentioned, ‘We’re at your again gate. When are you going to be right here?’ I assumed the constructing had burned down. They go, ‘Did you hear concerning the telephone incident?’”

All Volker might muster was “What telephone?” earlier than he and Mary Ann pulled out of their driveway in Santa Cruz’s Bonny Doon and headed for the bar.

After they arrived, they have been greeted by greater than a half-dozen information vans surrounding the bar. “All of our neighbors thought somebody had died or one thing,” Volker mentioned.

One of many first issues Volker did after navigating the throng of TV reporters was e mail Jobs.

“I e mail Steve, and I mentioned, ‘Steve, that is what occurred. What would you like me to do? Are you able to please attain out and let me know? How would you like me to deal with the scenario?’” he mentioned, noting that Jobs’ e mail was available on-line.

Steve Dowling, the VP of communications for Apple, referred to as Volker 4 days later and instructed him to maintain doing what he was doing — which on this case was not giving interviews.

“That iPhone factor put us all around the map,” Volker mentioned.

Gourmand Haus Staudt was one of many Bay Space’s greatest German bars even earlier than it was eternally linked to Apple’s iPhone. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
Gourmand Haus Staudt was one of many Bay Space’s greatest German bars even earlier than it was eternally linked to Apple’s iPhone. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)

Based on a supply who labored at Apple on the time, each safety presentation after the telephone was stolen included a point out of the misplaced prototype and Gourmand Haus Staudt. Three separate New York Occasions tales printed in 2010 additionally talked about Gourmand Haus Staudt (the one three mentions of the bar within the Occasions ever): one about the iPhone prototype incident, one about the emergence of Redwood City as a tech hub and one “36 Hours in Silicon Valley” journey file, wherein the bar is described as “a low-key place for engineers to gab about new software program compilers, their Python wizardry and Android A.P.I.’s.” 

Then the story went international.

See Also

Fracking Eyeballs—Asterisk

For 3 years after, Gourmand Haus Staudt was inundated with worldwide guests. “There was a pilgrimage of Apple junkies from Japan and China and Germany, and so they’d ask, ‘Which chair did it occur at?’ And they might take footage within the chair,” Volker mentioned.

The beer chargeable for Powell’s downfall that fateful night time, Weihenstephaner Vitus — a wheat buck beer from Germany containing 7.7% alcohol by quantity — additionally received a good quantity of publicity due to Powell’s last Fb publish earlier than dropping the telephone: “I underestimated how good German beer is,” he wrote. It additionally led to a loyal following on the bar — at one level, Gourmand Haus Staudt was promoting extra Vitus than every other bar on the planet (it nonetheless has a plaque commemorating the consideration).

“Germans have been tremendous proud as a result of it was Vitus, a German beer, that introduced down Apple,” Mary Ann mentioned. “That was the ‘Males in Black’ of tech firms again then. The safety was insane.”

A New York Times story printed simply 9 months earlier than the safety breach detailed the acute lengths the corporate went to as a way to preserve product releases beneath wraps.

“Few firms, certainly, are extra secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those that dare violate the corporate’s guidelines on retaining tight management over info,” the Occasions wrote. “Workers have been fired for leaking information tidbits to outsiders, and the corporate has been identified to unfold disinformation about product plans to its personal staff.”

Penetrating the Apple safety fortress whereas breaking the legislation had penalties for everybody concerned.

Police raided the Fremont residence of then Gizmodo editor Chen, broke down his door when he didn’t reply after which seized exterior arduous drives, 4 computer systems, two servers, telephones and different objects from his residence — a raid that the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and different teams argued violated federal and state legislation.

Jobs additionally instructed that Gizmodo tried to “extort” Apple through an email exchange between Jobs and Gizmodo editors wherein the gadget weblog listed circumstances to be met earlier than it will hand the prototype again to Apple. However San Mateo County District Lawyer Steven Wagstaffe mentioned there wasn’t enough proof to cost Gizmodo or Chen with possession of stolen property or extortion.

After which there was the fallout for the iPhone thief: Hogan and an confederate pleaded no contest to theft of lost property and have been sentenced to 40 hours of public service and ordered to pay simply $250 every in restitution to Apple.

The Staudts additionally banned Hogan completely from Gourmand Haus Staudt, whereas Apple pressured its personal ban from the bar on Powell — although it doesn’t sound like that ban was enforced very strictly.

Powell stored his job regardless of the misplaced prototype and labored on Apple’s iOS software program for one more seven years earlier than leaving the corporate in 2017. This preliminary interview with the Staudts was carried out a yr in the past in hopes SFGATE would be capable to observe down Powell, however many makes an attempt to succeed in him for this story have been unsuccessful.

13 years later, Volker mentioned Gourmand Haus Staudt has gone from The German Bar In Redwood Metropolis The place The Man Misplaced The iPhone to easily The German Bar In Redwood Metropolis, which is simply high quality with the Staudts, who’ve constructed fairly the Bay Space neighborhood and at the moment are passing the bar on to the third Staudt technology. Their son Grant, who began as a dishwasher on the bar and now owns a resurrected dive bar of his personal in Santa Cruz referred to as Mission West, is slowly taking on the day-to-day operations of Gourmand Haus Staudt.

The Staudts’ Haus of 49 years (and counting) will stay in a household that has grown significantly over time, each actually and figuratively. Volker’s niece met her husband right here. They’ve had one couple get married within the bar. My spouse and I even determined to have our third baby on our technique to a dinner at Gourmand Haus Staudt. It has that sort of impact on folks. The shared tables, the brilliant smiles, the enormous beers, the sensation that you simply’re in a spot not like every other within the San Francisco Bay Space.

Simply bear in mind once you go to maintain an in depth eye in your telephone.