Paters Vaetje

Photos and words by Cliff Lucas.
Edited by Breandán Kearney.

Café Society is a photographic series which celebrates the spaces at the heart of Belgian beer culture. See more here.

When churchgoers in the early 1900s stepped out of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, one of the first buildings in sight was a slender red brick and white stucco façade of a local “maison de rendez-vous”: a brothel. But when a fire tore through the building nearly 50 years ago, Elisa Lauwers and her husband, Paul Hartmut, saw an opportunity for something the fathers of the Cathedral may have approved of slightly more: Lauwers, a former teacher from Antwerp, sold her car to fund the opening of Paters Vaetje (“the Father’s Barrel” in English), a small brown bar in the heart of the city with wood-paneled walls, art deco stained glass above the bar, an extensive beer menu, and a few common Flemish dishes for those with an appetite. Long before COVID-19 lockdowns and changing drinking habits, the café would be open all day. A tight, wooden staircase leads to a mezzanine floor—both historically classified as beschermd erfgoed so as not to be altered without permission—which looks out over the bar and entryway. The floorboards of the mezzanine, still stained from the black soot of the fire, creak as visitors find a place to sit. Lauwers passed away in July 2024, age 77, and the bar is no longer open all day, but sisters Steffie and Charis Saenen, who live upstairs and manage the day to day operations, ensure there’s always a drink for the Paters across the road.