Cuperus began in 1823 in Friesland, the northern Dutch province, as a tea business. Coffee came later, and so did Antwerp: in 1931 the company moved south and opened a shop with a tearoom in the Boerentoren. In 1965 it opened what it describes as the first coffee bar in the city. Since 2013 it has been run by Glenn De Rouck and Ellen Goormans, and in 2026 it has three coffee bars, its own roasting and, since November 2023, no shop on the Sint-Katelijnevest.
That last fact is the interesting one. A 200-year-old tea merchant that closes its flagship counter sounds like a firm in trouble. At Cuperus it was a change of address for the customers, and the company followed them.
From Friesland to the Farmers’ Tower
Friesland has form in this trade. In Joure, Egbert Douwes opened a grocery called De Witte Os, the White Ox, in 1752, and the shop later specialised in coffee, tea and tobacco. As Douwe Egberts it now belongs to JDE Peet’s, a global coffee and tea company. Cuperus took the other road out of the province. It stayed small, and it became a city business, in a city that was not its own.
The address it chose in 1931 was a statement. The Boerentoren was built by the Middenkredietbank, which managed money for farmers and the Farmers’ Union, hence the name, and it was designed by Jan Vanhoenacker, Émile Van Averbeke and Jos Smolderen ahead of the 1930 exhibition that marked a century of Belgian independence. At 87.5 metres it was one of the first tall buildings in Europe, and by roof height the second tallest on the continent after the Telefónica Building in Madrid. Cuperus’s own history calls it the first skyscraper in Europe; Madrid would like a word. Katoen Natie bought the Boerentoren, Antwerp’s Art Deco tower in 2020 to turn it into a cultural institution.
The first coffee bar
After a restructuring the company began roasting its own beans, and about twenty years later, in 1965, it opened its coffee bar. Visit Antwerpen, the city’s tourist office, repeats the claim that it was the first in Antwerp and adds that Cuperus is one of the oldest coffee and tea brands in the Low Countries. Cuperus tells the rest of its own history with unusual candour on its website: the brand weakened over the following decades, through changes of address and changes of owner. By the early 2010s its bar stood on the Schoenmarkt, where it had been for years.
De Rouck and Goormans bought its assets through their company, Koverim, because the previous operators had no one to hand it to, the trade site Made in reported in 2015. Koverim also sits above Koffie De Vlijt, a roastery in Deurne that is in its fourth generation. The new owners were soon forced off the Schoenmarkt and moved the bar to the Sint-Katelijnevest, the street where the first coffee bar had opened. Turnover at the bar rose by 20 per cent in the year of the move, and the two businesses together made about €1.35 million, 8 per cent more than the year before.
The Sint-Katelijnevest address became a three-floor café with a shop and a training space, according to European Coffee Trip, with takeaway coffee downstairs and quiet seating upstairs for people with laptops. Ellen taught coffee workshops; the shop sold brewing equipment for coffee and tea. Cuperus also published a flavour wheel for drinkers. Every coffee is tasted by the team and given one of six colours, whatever the farm, origin or process: bright fruit, nuts, sweet fruit, floral, chocolate, or herbs and spices. It is a sensible way to sell coffee to people who do not want a lecture on cultivars.
Following the customers
Around 2017 a second bar, Cuperus Horsey, opened at Paardenmarkt 28, in the student quarter, and by the company’s own account it was busy almost at once. The name is a joke on the street: Paardenmarkt means horse market. Listings describe a large room with wifi and tables with power sockets, espresso, filter coffee, decaf and tea, breakfast, lunch and cakes, with vegan options and plant milk. In 2021 Cuperus took over Bar Stark, a former coffee customer near the Sterckshof in Deurne, and renamed it Cuperus Stark. A third bar, Boulaar, is at Sterrenborgstraat 2.
On 18 November 2023, after ten years, the Sint-Katelijnevest served its last cappuccinos. The company’s explanation was short: a physical shop no longer suited the way people buy. Closing it was the right decision. A firm that started as a Frisian tea merchant, moved into a bank tower and opened the city’s first coffee bar has lasted 200 years by going where its customers sit, and by 2023 they were sitting with laptops on the Paardenmarkt rather than shopping on the Katelijnevest. The city, meanwhile, had presented plans in September 2023 to rebuild part of the Sint-Katelijnevest with new tram tracks, granite pavements and separate drains.
What is in the cup
The coffee is bought on what Cuperus calls a direct trade model, with regular visits to plantations and what it describes as fair prices for farmers. It sums up its approach in three words borrowed from business school, people, planet and profit, and in a Dutch proverb that is better than all three: eerlijkheid duurt het langst, honesty lasts longest. Cuperus still roasts its own coffee, and Visit Antwerpen lists it alongside Normo, Kolonel Koffie and Caffènation among the city roasters that roast their own beans. Of that group, Kolonel Koffie started as a coffee bar in 2010. Cuperus had a 187-year head start.
An earlier version of this page promised an in-house pastry chef, compostable packaging and tasting events. None of that could be confirmed, and it has gone. The cakes at Horsey are real, and the tea, which started all this in Friesland in 1823, is still on the menu.
Cuperus
- Addresses: Cuperus Horsey, Paardenmarkt 28, 2000 Antwerp; Cuperus Stark, Cornelissenlaan, Deurne; Bar Boulaar, Sterrenborgstraat 2, Antwerp
- Founded: 1823 in Friesland; in Antwerp since 1931; first coffee bar 1965
- Who runs it: Glenn De Rouck and Ellen Goormans, since 2013
- Hours (Horsey): Monday to Friday from 8:30, Saturday from 10:00
- Why it works: it moves when its customers do
