Practical information
Description
Timeline
Stakeholders
Strengths and offer
Urban logistics
Positive impacts
Needs
Logistical challenges
Practical information
What?
Mazette is a cooperative café-brasserie in the Marolles, combining a bar, light food, bakery, brewery and production of non-alcoholic drinks. The place produces as much as possible on site: beers brewed in the cellar, sourdough breads baked in a wood-fired oven, focaccias, soft drinks and homemade preparations.
Who?
Mazette SC, a cooperative bringing together citizens, workers and residents of the Marolles. The publicly identified founders in the launch documents are France Cardonnel, Pierre Bihin, Yorick “Yosh” Coomans and Boris Feron. The current cooperative page also highlights Pierre, Pablo, Yosh, Sarah and Boris.
Where?
Place du Jeu de Balle 50, 1000 Brussels — Marolles, facing the flea market.
When?
The project was prepared from around 2018.
The cooperative was created in 2021.
The café-brasserie opened in March 2022.
Contact
Mazette — +32 (0)2 446 17 18
mazette.brussels
Resources
mazette.brussels; Good Food Brussels; BRUZZ; BX1; Beer.be; Mazette Gazette; Les Grands Blés; De Groentelaar; Mazette public launch documents.
Description
Mazette is a cooperative café-brasserie located on Place du Jeu de Balle, in the Marolles. The place combines several functions that are usually separated: bar, kitchen, bakery, brewery, soft-drink production, events, cooperative governance and neighbourhood anchoring.
Its relevance for Palette lies in the fact that Mazette is not only a restaurant that “sources well”. It is a place that reintegrates a significant part of food transformation: breads and focaccias are kneaded and baked on site, beers and non-alcoholic drinks are produced in the cellar, and the menu evolves according to the seasons and available raw materials.
Mazette therefore functions as a small integrated urban food node. It combines the supply of raw materials, storage, fermentation, baking, brewing, cooking, counter service and sociability. The project brings the field, the mill, the oven, the vat and the plate closer together, both symbolically and materially.
Timeline
Around 2018
Beginning of the project, according to several articles and launch documents.
2021
Creation of the cooperative and share campaign. The public launch documents specify the founding team and the initial economic model.
March 2022
Opening of the cooperative café-brasserie.
2022–2023
Visibility in Brussels media, Good Food recognition and nomination for the 2023 hub.awards.
2025
Communication around “Mazette 4.0”, a more peasant-style cuisine, a more direct relationship with De Groentelaar / Tijs, and the bakery through the Mazette mini-documentary.
2026
The website indicates 841 cooperators and 7 permanent workers.
Stakeholders
Mazette SC, as the cooperative structure operating the place, governance, production and service.
Worker-cooperators, active at the bar, in the kitchen, bakery, brewery and support roles.
Citizen cooperators and residents of the Marolles, who contribute to support, governance and local anchoring.
Partner producers and craftspeople, notably for vegetables, flours, cereals, malt, hops and other sourced products.
De Groentelaar / Tijs Boelens, publicly identified as an important market-garden partner in the recent evolution of the kitchen.
Les Grands Blés, publicly identified for Belgian organic stone-milled flours used in the bread.
Brussels Environment / Good Food, as part of the Brussels sustainable food recognition ecosystem.
Neighbourhood partners and cultural actors, through collaborations, events and programming.
Strengths and offer
Beers, soft drinks, breads, focaccias and food mostly made in-house.
Very strong integration of several links in the food value chain within one urban place.
Rare visibility of food transformation work in the city: fermentation, brewing, bread, baking, cooking and storage.
Reduction of some intermediaries through in-house production and direct or shortened links with producers.
More direct relationship with certain producers, especially around vegetables and flour.
Capacity to adapt the kitchen to real seasonality and product availability.
Convincing articulation between food quality, neighbourhood sociability, cultural programming and cooperative governance.
A showcase place for thinking about what “local” concretely means in restaurants.
A very useful case for making abstract logistical questions tangible: storage, fermentation, unsold goods, seasonality, raw materials, human labour and transformation.
Urban logistics
How does it work?
Mazette buys a significant share of its raw, unprocessed ingredients, then creates much of the added value on site: brewing, fermentation, bread baking, soft-drink production, cooking and service. The model reduces some downstream intermediaries, but greatly increases the transformation work carried out inside the place itself.
Why is it interesting?
Because Mazette shows that a horeca place can become a place of production again, not only a final point of consumption. The project does not address urban logistics by adding a new delivery layer or digital tool, but by working upstream: supplier choices, shortened chains, on-site transformation, adaptation to the seasons and greater legibility of the food chain.
Which obstacles does it respond to?
Fragmentation of the food chain, dependence on semi-processed products, loss of legibility between production and consumption, standardisation of horeca offers, difficulty maintaining direct relationships with producers, waste linked to standardisation, and limited autonomy for establishments dependent on multiple intermediaries.
Identified nodes / obstacles
Long production times; high workload; seasonality; agricultural uncertainties; storage; cellar; cold storage; fermentation; coordination with producers; fair prices; economic accessibility; balance between productive place, welcoming place and cultural venue; risk of being perceived as a gentrifying actor despite its claimed local anchoring.
Positive impacts
Environment — potential reduction of certain transports of finished products and part of the packaging, even if the exact impact depends on actual upstream flows, deliveries, volumes and suppliers.
Space — strengthening of a walkable proximity offer in the neighbourhood, while concentrating several productive functions in one urban place.
Neighbourhood — possible contribution to a more daily and less purely event-based local use, while raising the usual neighbourhood questions linked to an active horeca venue.
Social relations — strong impact: cooperative structure, meeting place, events, local collaborations, involvement of workers and citizens, visibility of artisanal work and links with producers.