In the absence of a terrace due to the prolonged construction site on the road, the KFK Hope bar (formerly Kafka) in the Brussels city centre found a creative solution to its problem – and now a photo is going viral on social media.
As road works have been ongoing in the Brussels city centre for several months now, the safety barriers in front of KFK Hope have been preventing the owners from putting up a proper terrace.
However, with the temperatures fluctuating around 30°C in recent days (and likely for several more to come), a space for tables and chairs has become available: on top of the roadworks on the no-longer paved street in front of the establishment, with bar-goers able to comfortably sit and have a drink.
“We ourselves were the ones who started doing this,” Christiane Canu of KFK Hope told Het Nieuwsblad. “And this weekend, we saw it really catch on. People clearly like sitting there.”
A photo of the impromptu terrace, which was posted to Twitter on Sunday evening, quickly went viral with people leaving many comments and retweets, deeming it "a typically Brussels solution" or "the most Brussels thing they have ever seen."
In part, the comments refer to the typical so-called Belgian solutions and "Belgitude" that prevails in the country and its capital city, but KFK Hope's owners also see another explanation: "I think they mean: there are always works and things are not progressing. We do not see any change. So we are looking for a solution to have fun with it."
Still, the owners were promised that the work in front of the bar should be completed by the beginning of July, when the annual holidays for construction workers start (on 3 July in Brussels), she said.
