First of its kind Belgian-style bar coming to Bury St Edmunds

Planning permission has been granted to bring a family-run Belgian-style bar to central Bury St Edmunds.

The bar will be found in St Andrew’s Street South in The Old Stable House and offer a ‘Continental-style’ atmosphere, with most beers offered in smaller sizes.

Belgian, as well as local beers will be available and customers will also be able to order food in from local takeaways and restaurants to eat on site.

The venue will be serving snacks such as meat platters as well.

The venue will be run by René van den Oort, who owns Beautiful Beers in St John’s Street, and his son Max, 25, will work on the bar.

René said the main reason behind the new bar was to offer the people of Bury ‘something different’.

He said: “We looked during Covid to see if we could diversify our business and to offer existing customers an opportunity to try the beers that we sell.

“We have had a lot of requests from existing customers to open a bar or open a (bar) area, but it wasn’t possible here in St John’s Street so we started looking at external buildings.”

He added the bar would be the first of its kind in the town.

“There is nothing other than the Belgian Monk in Norwich...and it was inspirational for us to see that a business like that could be successful.”

Rene, who said he was ‘excited’ at the prospect of running the bar alongside his son, has worked in the catering industry for over 35 years.

He has worked in London and used to own the Bay Tree Café, just down the road from Beautiful Beers.

In an earlier planning statement, René said there would be easy listening background music in the bar and they would encourage conversation by designing the seating area with sofas and bench seating.

Newspapers, magazines and board games will also be available.

While planning permission has been granted, the bar is not set to open for around two months.