“This is our office garden, designed by René and Marianne,” says Oxi de Visser (25) in a former warehouse near Binckhorst in The Hague. “Everything according to feng shui principles. We only have round corners here.” In the large bright room there are indeed only tables with round corners and spherical chairs. There are Persian carpets on the floor. Plants hang everywhere. Oxi: “Those plants are of course for the humidity but also because it gives the building a lot of peace and atmosphere.”
Owner René van Geer (64) – quiet luxury black sweater and trousers – standing in line for lunch. There is bread from the bakery, cheese from Ridders Kaashuis. Behind scales with ‘bean sprouts miso salad‘, ‘fresh kimchi salad‘ and a ‘tofu stew‘ of ‘wild rice‘, there are three chefs in a chef’s costume. Above them a quote from Albert Einstein: “If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind”.
This is not very healthy, but it can also be tasty
Lunch is vegetarian and free. A conscious choice, says René, as he puts a few cubes of tofu on his plate. “A company is a social network, you should not underestimate how important it is to feel part of a whole.” He didn’t want people to have to pay 3 euros and therefore have to bring sandwiches from home. “Eating together is a very important thing.”
Photos Simon Lenskens
Marianne van Sasse van Ysselt (61) joins us. She insists, but “I can do that.” Marianne and René met when she was 14 and he was 17. “It never got boring,” says Marianne. Together they started designing the card holder in 1995. In addition to running the company, Marianne studied macrobiotics. “We don’t want to impose anything, but we want to show that vegetarian food can be a lot of fun.” On her plate is a small slice of bread with organic Nocciolate, a kind of chic Nutella. “This is not so healthy, but it can also be tasty.”
“And that is Guus Meeuwis,” says René, pointing to a crouching seagull just behind the black steel glass doors. Guus is waiting for lunch on the adjacent quay of the Binckhorst waterway. Every day, from about half past eleven. Guus is an “orphan seagull,” says Marianne. In the summer the company has lunch outside at large tables. In mid-August, Guus arrived at Secrid as a weakened young seagull, he could no longer fly. “Wout, a colleague of ours, is a volunteer at the Bird Protection Society, who saw that Guus was having a hard time,” says Marianne. Guus was fed with fish by the employees and now he never leaves.
René van Geer feeds cheese to Guus Meeuwis.
Photo Simon Lenskens
‘Good with birds’
Today Guus gets cheese, because there is no fish. But actually that is no longer allowed by “birdman Wout”. According to Wout, the young seagull now has to learn to catch fish on its own. But Wout is not there today. One of the chefs cuts a few pieces of cheese into blocks especially for Guus. René walks outside with hands full of cheese. “René is very good with birds,” says Marianne. “As a little boy, there was a very large parrot in a pet store and the owner did not dare to feed him. René was the only one who could.”
Guus waddles on his flat feet towards René’s hand and greedily devours a chunk of cheese. Marianne sticks her head out through the door: “Well, that is a very big piece René!” Marianne doesn’t know when they will stop feeding Guus. “Look, if it is really cold, we have to help him a little.”
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