At the end of April, King George Café announced that after 8 successful years, it would permanently close its doors and look for a new owner. The takeover has now been completed. With pride, King George Café and SBE announce today that, as of September 1st, the café will be taken over by engineering consultancy SBE. The Sint-Niklaas-based company will exclusively open the café for its 250 employees.
SBE, located just a stone’s throw from King George Café, has been a regular customer for lunches, meetings, and events for years. Shortly after the announcement of the café’s closure, both parties entered into discussions. Jan Thomas, co-CEO of SBE, says: “We’ve been fans of the concept and interior of King George Café for years, and our employees love going there. When we sat down with Liesbeth and Nicolas—founders of the King George agency—it was clear that they were also very excited about the idea of turning it into our own SBE space.”
SBE Café will be a place where ‘SBE experts at play’ can enjoy lunch, coffee, hold meetings, exchange ideas, or have a drink with colleagues after work. The café will no longer be accessible to the public.
Nicolas, founder of King George, says: “We are very pleased with this partnership and happy that SBE can write its own story in our café. Unfortunately, this means our café will no longer function as a public hotspot. We would like to thank all our customers for the past years. Although King George Café is closing, the creative agency King George—located above the café on Driekoningenstraat—will, of course, continue to operate at full strength with our 25 employees.”
King George Café will officially close its doors on Friday, June 14, at 6:00 p.m. SBE Café will open for its employees starting Tuesday, September 17.
This appeared in the media regarding the news:
- 12/6/21: Het Nieuwsblad here
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