Café De Presse, Geraardsbergen

Café De Presse

Markt 50, 9500 Geraardsbergen

Grade C · TraditionBelieved trading · not confirmed

Café De Presse is dated 1459 in the press. No earlier record has been found.

Claimed

1459

First record

none found

Building

no single date

The building. The Flemish inventory dates the house at Markt 50 to the 17th century and notes an older core, with the street front entirely altered in the 20th century; behind it, at right angles, a brick and sandstone building of three storeys the inventory puts, with a question mark, in the 17th century, with a crow-stepped gable and a partly blocked sandstone cross window.

Locals

Market square

The claim

On Geraardsbergen's sloping market square, De Presse bills itself as the oldest café in Flanders, tracing its roots to 1459, when the town's first Manneken Pis is said to have stood against the façade of the house then called De Ghulden Cop. Today it is an unpretentious local bar, reopened in 2022, with regular spaghetti nights.

What the records show

The 1459 comes from a 2022 report in Made in Oost-Vlaanderen, which says that in 1459 the façade of the house, then called De Ghulden Cop, held the first Manneken Pis figure, and adds that whether De Presse is the oldest café in Flanders is a question for historians. That shows a named house on the market, not an early tavern licence; no documentary proof of 15th-century café use was found. Whether it is open today is a different question from how old it is, and the answer is not one we can give: Belgium’s register of businesses, standing at 17 September 2026, holds no live business at Markt 50, only five ceased branches of this name. A register can lag a new tenant, so it is left as trading rather than closed, but anyone travelling to Geraardsbergen for it should check first.

What to look for inside

Claims 1459, linked to Geraardsbergen's Manneken Pis
The Flemish inventory dates the house to the 17th century, on an older core
The 1459 figure was cast in Brussels and delivered in May 1459
Historic house name De Ghulden Cop
Reopened in October 2022 after closure

Visiting

Café De Presse is in Geraardsbergen, Belgium, at Markt 50, 9500 Geraardsbergen. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

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