De Laak coffee boat in The Hague is for sale at €390,000

The De Laak coffee boat in The Hague is for sale for €390,000, complete with the hospitality business on board. According to the listing by broker HKV Makelaars, the buyer also takes ownership of the boat itself and a mooring permit with no end date at Verheeskade 20, in the Laakhaven.

The floating Koffiehuis De Laak has been a fixed stop for coffee and a broodje bal, the Dutch meatball roll, in the Laak district for almost fifty years. Owner Jos Overdevest, 64, told Omroep West in June that he was stepping down. He gave no price then; it now appears in the sale listing, which itself gives no reason for the sale.

What the De Laak coffee boat includes

For €390,000 you buy an old-school coffee house in the Laakhaven, boat included.

The boat measures about 22 by 6.8 metres and has two decks. Upstairs is roughly 120 m² of hospitality space with a kitchen and bar; downstairs is another 120 m² or so of storage. There is room for about 72 guests inside and another 20 on a terrace of around 20 m².

The €390,000 is the asking price for the business: inventory, operating rights, goodwill, tenancy interest and trade name, with the boat included. The listing mentions low housing costs but gives no figures, and no turnover either. The buyer takes over one permanent employee and one on a fixed-term contract. There are no gaming machines. The business opens Monday to Friday, from 5 am to 4 pm.

An old-school Hague coffee house

Overdevest started helping his father at the age of twelve and has run the business since 1978, he told Omroep West in June. When the family's earlier coffee house on the Calandplein had to close, his father had a boat built. In 2010 De Laak's broodje bal scored a 9.3. Overdevest described the job to the broadcaster as very hard work and called the business his baby.

According to Omroep West, The Hague once had around sixty coffee houses of this kind; about fifteen remain. Where the customers used to be mainly construction workers, the regulars now span every age group. Within a week of the first report, fourteen interested parties had come forward. Overdevest said he would most like a couple or a family to take over and keep the place as it is.

It is a different Hague coffee scene from the new specialty bars, such as ALBA specialty coffee on the Piet Heinstraat. There the focus is on filter and beans; on the Laakhaven it is the first cup before the working day. De Laak stays open until a buyer is found. Whether a new owner will also open the doors at 5 am is not in the listing.