From Heverlee to Buenos Aires: travel café ViaVia celebrates 30th anniversary

In 1981, a group of friends came up with the idea for Joker, a travel organisation that would offer people more than a traditional tourist experience. “We wanted to bring them into contact with the local population instead of just showing them monuments,” says founder Jan Baeten. “And then you ask yourself: how can we stimulate that contact between tourists and locals even better?”

The answer turned out to be simple: a café. “We started with Flemish culture, where every village has a well-known café. Why not export that concept?”

Home away from home

From that idea grew the concept of ViaVia travel cafés, and meeting places opened in both Heverlee and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. There are now 15 ViaVias around the world, from Morocco to Nepal to Argentina.

Thirty years later, the motto of the travel café remains “home away from home”. “The aim is for people to feel at home abroad. We do this by offering meals from everyone’s home country, because ViaVia serves dishes from around the world,” says Baeten.

“In Heverlee, for example, there is no set menu, but a large board on which the dishes of the day are written. If a dish is sold out, it’s wiped off and something new is added. Visitors always find something surprising. Everything is aimed at making travellers feel at home, even if you’re thousands of kilometres from home.”

According to Baeten, Yogyakarta is a strong example of how the ViaVia vision can be put into practice. “What started as a small café-restaurant has grown into a whole hub of activities,” he says. “There is a bakery, a hostel and a guide training course. All staffed by people who once started out as café staff.”