Club of the Month: Kater

Berlin may still be the undisputed, year-round capital of clubbing, but recent coverage of the city’s electronic music culture often arrives imbued with a sombre tone. Rising rents, prohibitive living costs, generational tensions and TikTok malaise are all, we’re told, slowly chipping away at the German capital’s era-defining commitment to free expression, hedonism and community. 

Opening in 2014, Kater, previously known as Kater Blau, is built on these very principles. It has existed for the last decade as a whirring, chaotic beacon of what is still just about possible in an urban landscape that has been shifting faster than many can comprehend. 

The spiritual successor to the legendary Bar 25, an anything-went, all-hours house and techno club that became an international open secret for DJs in the 00s, Kater sits in the same spot, snug between the banks of the Spree river and the imposing railway arches of the crosstown S-Bahn railway. Each weekend, it throws a party across multiple dance floors, often stretching well into Monday, a rolling proposition for locals and party tourists alike. 

Developing alongside the Holzmarkt district, a ‘creative urban quarter’ home to restaurants, a bakery and office spaces, Kater was born from an unusual arrangement. The land it sits on was purchased in 2012 by a Swiss pension fund, born out of the anti-nuclear movement, who altruistically lease it back to Kater’s stake-owners, original party people with the desire to maintain a community built on collective principles. It’s a tough philosophy to stand with in 2025. A more recent neighbour is 90Mil, a grungy DIY venue that takes its name from the estimated value of the land it sits on, pragmatically awaiting their eviction notice, ready to be flattened for another mid-sized skyscraper.

The rapid redevelopment spanning the East Side of Berlin becomes surprisingly easy to forget as soon as partygoers pass through Kater’s inconspicuous entrance, where a traffic light signals an OK or otherwise from the bouncers. The club’s door policy maintains respect, but is far from the toughest in Berlin, reflected in a regular crowd that varies in age, background and typically eschews the all-black techno aesthetic still so prevalent at Berghain or RSO. Instead, Kater encourages colour, glitter and more celebratory, expressive fits. You’re more likely to receive the red light for looking too dour for the club’s lucid, optimistic vibe, than for wearing a beaming smile.

From the perspective of Dennis Schmees, Kater’s laidback, tattooed PR director, the most potent characteristics sought in the club’s diverse range of dancers are “curiosity and respect”. Schmees’s own journey to Kater’s inner sanctum came unexpectedly via the German punk and hardcore scene, which he was heavily involved in as a band booker. Sensing an uncomfortably  macho turn in his musical world, Schmees moved to Berlin over a decade ago. Like many, he was impressed with the city’s open-mindedness.

“I was seeking a different sound, and found there were punks and hardcore kids at techno parties, which seemed wild to me at first”, he recalls. “Soon, it made sense. The values are very similar. The heartbeat is the same, even if the music is different. People come to Kater knowing that they will not be alone, and some of those same punks are still involved in Kater, and people I consider friends.”

Kater’s eclecticism can be felt in the bass across two main dancefloors, typically running in unison, joined by a large, indoor marquee that acts as a perfect ‘Wintergarten’ for those chilling or lingering, rather than heading home. ‘Hopper’ is a self-contained club rooted in techno and house, with its own impressive light and sound setup. In contrast, the looser ‘Acid Bogen’ area has a more anything-goes vibe, reflected in a musical policy that spans disco to garage, house and experimental sounds, often across just an afternoon.

For certain summer weekends, Kater flourishes into its own mini-festival, throwing open two more separate open-air floors, at which you’re as likely to witness a contortionist or a fire breather as you are a DJ. Like most Berlin clubs, entry is subject to your phone’s camera lenses disappearing beneath a brightly coloured sticker, anonymising the dancers inside. 

This is bittersweet; no club is quite as rich in photo opportunities as Kater. The venue’s outdoor pizza restaurant randomly but regularly spews flames. The toilets are guarded by two giant, psychedelic Mayan Godhead statues. An oversized titular ‘blue tomcat’ of the club’s name observes any and all shenanigans from the rooftops, supremely silly by day and faintly sinister by night, its red eyes beaming through plumes of drifting dance floor fog. 

Embracing absurdity as an identity, Kater’s recent eleventh birthday committed not only to 96-hours of partying, but an overarching gherkin theme. This extended to fountains of gherkin water, dozens of huge gherkins lurking from the rooftops and the venue’s upscale restaurant, Katerschmaus, serving a specially curated plethora of gherkin-tinted cocktails. Give them a bit, and they will commit.

Club manager Yonca Pulur focuses a keen, long-term eye on the venue’s ever-changing aesthetic, but notes that its constant evolution is also part of the club’s community philosophy. 

“It’s not that people only have certain fixed positions”, she stresses. “They also get the freedom to try out something else. For example, some of the performers we had over the birthday weekend are actually part of our bar staff, it’s just that they always wanted to do this.”

Yonca is, however, keen to stress that, “the idea of freedom always requires self-reflection.” As was the case for all nightlife institutions, the COVID-19 pandemic and its seismic aftereffects had a profound effect on Kater. With the doors closed and staff furloughed at home, Yonca observed the tectonic social changes stirring in society. With a perspective trained through social and feminist studies at university, she was quickly aware that Kater would need to react to changes reverberating far beyond the club.

“There have been very strong social movements that started even before COVID”, she observes. “The Me Too movement began a huge global discussion about boundaries and consent. There was then Black Lives Matter, which started a discussion about racism, which made us rethink our approach to our own behaviors and how we reflect our status as people. Obviously, that didn't stop at club doors, and there came a change in expectation for our crowds. This was definitely not a bad thing, probably something that was also long overdue, and something that club goers now actually insist upon. So to show a certain level of awareness and support is integral, not just an option at Kater.”

In recent years, the club operates from a position of what it calls ‘preventive awareness’. Kater’s security and night managers have taken extensive workshops as a form of awareness training, in case of ravers needing support, while the venue offers a ‘quiet room’, a paradoxical but essential space for weary clubbers who might need a moment in a different, less fired-up atmosphere.

“It is really important, to all of us, that awareness is not just a performative sentence”, stresses Yonca. “It’s not just that we simply state it on our website, or that we place people with colorful vests on the floor and then that's that. Instead we have tried to prioritize fundamental structural change.”

This desire for change also extends to the club’s musical booking policy, which maintains its roots in the loose ethos of Bar 25. Since COVID, Kater has evolved subtly, sticking away from what booker George Stanhope politely calls the “harder, faster sound.” A veteran of queer clubbing scenes in Vancouver, London and Amsterdam, the recent reverberations of Kater’s sound have been shifted in part by a number of new collectives, including Stanhope’s own NEST, who bring their own musical policy and party ethos to the space.

“The place has such a long history and so many people involved, such a big family, that there are so many different perspectives, inputs and styles”, notes Stanhope. “Kater doesn't have to be a place that has a homogenous sound, it can be whatever we want. For example, someone like MIRA, who is one of our flagship residents, has been with us since Bar 25. And her style has evolved with the club, from this sort of downtempo style, back to a faster, melodic house. The roots are in house and techno, but nobody needs to stay in a box. It’s a space to evolve your artistry”.

Generational roots in house and techno provide a sense of purpose, but nothing beats a binding contract. Kater is safe for now, as its core team and hundreds of other workers continue to transition the club’s culture between the “old heads” and Berlin’s new creative scene, each enthusiastic to prove such a merger is possible. But while the endless ebb and flow of the club throws up constant new challenges, Kater is a quietly confident operation.

“Our secret, I think, is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously”, concludes Yonca. “Really, it’s about simplicity. We can focus on what matters, which is getting silly and getting loose. When there’s no hype, you can continue to double down on what you’re good at.”

“At the end of the day”, she concludes. “It’s just a club.”