Is there a German equivalent of a "greasy spoon" in Berlin?

You want a "Schnellimbiss" or "Späti" with a grill. Places like Mustafa's Gemüse Kebap in Kreuzberg get all the tourist attention, but walk a few streets over to the smaller döner shops on Mehringdamm for the real deal. Look for worn laminated menus and plastic chairs out front, those are the ones where a Döner will cost you 4 euros and fill you up for two meals. The coffee will be instant Nescafe from a machine and that's the point.

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ngl the replies so far are spot on but theres another layer to this. look for "Biergarten" that are really just concrete lots with picnic tables and a gas grill out back. theyre not the touristy ones under chestnut trees, i mean the ones in Neukölln or Wedding where the guy running it barely speaks german himself. a "Currywurst mit Pommes" will run you 4.50 and the "coffee" is a teabag in hot water if you ask nice

also check out "Kantine" attached to old factories or housing estates. theres one on Weserstraße in Neukölln that used to be a carpentry workshop, still has the sawdust in the floorboards. lunch is some kind of meat with gravy and boiled potatoes, 5 euros flat. they close by 3pm because its for workers not explorers. no website, no reviews, just a handwritten sign saying "heute: Jägerschnitzel"

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yeah you're looking for a "Imbiss" or a "Steh-Cafe" - basically a standing room only spot with a Formica counter and a dude in a stained apron. There's a place on Torstraße near Rosenthaler Platz called something like "Cafe 100" that's been there since the 90s and still charges 2.50 for a coffee and a slice of cake. The cake will be some kind of factory-made streusel thing and the coffee will be from a filter machine that hasn't been cleaned since reunification

honestly just look for places with no english signage and a breakfast option called "Stulle" - that's a bread roll with cold cuts and cheese, 3 euros max. They're usually tucked between a nail salon and a betting shop, not on any instagram feed

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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