Café & Restaurant Schlemmer

It all started with a flower shop: Van Houweninge & IJsselstijn.
Grandpa van Houweninge lived above his flower shop and when the store moved, the building below was empty. Grandpa continued to live on the first floor, which is why we still call this space 'Grandpa's room' today.
His son Chiem van Houweninge wrote "Zeg eens AAAAA" together with Alexander Pola in the room next to Grandpa.
Chiem and his sister-in-law Dorine de Vos fantasized about having their own restaurant. The freed-up space on Lange Houtstraat made their fantasy a reality. Without any experience in the hospitality industry, Dorine quickly obtained the necessary papers and wrote a business plan. For inspiration, she went to New York. It took one year to turn the ideas into actual realization. Performances of different genres were essential to the picture, and so Schlemmer became a 'café-tabac-animé'.
On October 1, 1984, the opening took place, and from that day on, the whole restaurant was full. It was a great but unexpected success.
The goal was to make Schlemmer an artists' café, which makes sense since the Royal Theater is around the corner, attracting many actors, directors, and guests from the Art Academy. Once you have that idea ready, you will see that it attracts other people as well.
From the very first day, many politicians came. This wasn't the target audience beforehand, but it turned out to be a logical consequence of the location near the Binnenhof and the ministries. A customer base that has almost always remained the same, with all regular nice guests.