How did Chez Clément weather the wars and crises?

Brasserie Chez Clément has existed since 1858. More than 168 years of continuous activity, five generations on the same site, at Rue de la Bruyère 230 in Genval. The plain fact of that continuity already tells a story: the house has necessarily lived through wars, economic crises, political regime changes, the upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And every single time, the hand-over has happened, and the smoke has kept rising from the kitchen.

The length of each generation says a great deal in itself. Henri and Sidonie ran the house for 65 years, from 1858 to 1923, they covered the entire late nineteenth century and the rise of modern Belgium. Jules and Marie-Lidwina ran the house from 1923 to 1954, 31 years covering the interwar period, the Depression of the 1930s, the Occupation and the post-war years. Marcel and Andrée ran the house from 1954 to 1996, 42 years covering the post-war boom, the oil shocks and the rise of the modern European economy. France Clément ran the house from 1996 to 2021, 25 years that include the rise of the internet, the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Marie and Gilles Verleyen have run the house since 2021.

The official family narrative does not, at this stage, detail precise anecdotes of how the Clément house went through the world wars or the major economic crises. Documentation of the choices made during the First World War, the Occupation, or more recently the closures imposed on Belgian hospitality during the Covid-19 lockdowns, sits in the family archives and is being reviewed for possible future inclusion on the website. No specific war or crisis anecdote is publicly claimed by the house at this stage, and we choose, on accuracy grounds, not to invent them.

What is established and stable is the structural continuity over 168 years. No permanent closure, no loss of the site, no change of location. The trading name “Chez Clément” has carried across every generational hand-over, even now that the fifth generation bears the Verleyen surname. That is the resilience marker the house claims, not a collection of anecdotes, but a structural fact: we are still here, in the same place, open seven days a week, with a kitchen brigade of thirty-two, serving between 200 and 300 covers per service. More than 1,400 covers a week, even today.