The parking space at Truckerscafé Kanters in Moerdijk is today full of trucks for the last time. Truckers come together once more on Thursday evening before the truckers café closes its doors for good. “This was our living room in the evening.”
The truck drivers drive over the parking lot on Thursday. At the beginning of the evening, the truckers café slowly drips with truckers who come and have a drink for the last time. Then it’s done with the beloved café.
The staff announced on Wednesday evening in a message on Facebook that the doors close. “It is certainly not our choice, but the new owner thinks differently. We can receive you for the last time on Thursday evening,” said the message.
“How do you get it in your head, all terrace chairs have already been removed.”
That is why on Thursday evening it is busy in the parking lot. “I think it’s terrible,” says a truck driver. “I’ve been coming here for eighteen years and is there every night. I was upset after the news, nobody saw it coming.”
With the closing of the cafe, a lot of fun is lost. “We have become a group of friends. Sometimes we are sitting on the terrace with as much as twenty people, so cozy. It’s my second home, I will really miss that,” she says with tears in her eyes.
To her displeasure, a large part of the terrace has already been cleaned up on Thursday evening. “Scandalous that all terrace chairs have already been removed. How to get it in your head. Just wait a while until it is really closed tonight, and don’t do that now.”
One of the truckers who comes to say goodbye on Thursday came here for thirty years, once or twice a week. “And suddenly it’s over,” he says. “I don’t get it. I would not know what is suddenly going on. Kanters is a household name. We are one big family and can say everything to each other.”
A young truck driver adds: “The staff knows most drivers by name. The band that we have with them makes it special. It’s really a shame.”
The closure means the end of a long history. It started more than ninety years ago, in 1933, when Willem Kanters opened a wooden coffee and lemonade tent on the Zwaluwsedijk. From there, Kanters grew into a household name, not only for drivers, but also for passers -by and local residents.
“It is a fuck,” says a driver while he is on his way to his favorite café for the last time. “This was our living room in the evening. Now we will have to go somewhere else.”
