From cans of fresh to different types of coffee and from stuffed cookies to condoms. In addition to his busy evening job in the Horeca during the day, Mika Vermeulen runs his own coffee shop at Cuijk station: “I had chatgpt determined the range.”
In a large old -fashioned waiting room that feels like a ballroom, there is the small coffee shop of Mika. Eight times per hour he sees the trains at Cuijk station through the window at the counter: a train towards Nijmegen and a direction Roermond every 15 minutes.
If his business is closed, the waiting room will also remain closed. “I saw this station building empty and I thought: other stations have a shop at the station, why did Cuijk not have that? It seemed like a nice project to start. I want to prove myself and show that I can make this a success.”
He faithfully opens the roller shutter of his coffee shop at eight days a week at eight in the morning. Not for the money, he says. “I do it for fun. I just like to help people. For the money I don’t have to do it for the time being, that is a bit disappointing,” says Mika honestly.
History Station Cuijk
Cuijk station was built in 1882. On 1 June 1883 the building with the waiting room was taken into use when the railway line was also officially opened. In all those years, the striking building was almost razed to the ground twice. In 1944 during the Second World War when a ammunition train with fifty wagons with German jet aircraft was ‘parked’ here. English planes flew over the train, but it did not come to a shelling.
The other moment was thirty years after the war: there were plans for a new station building, but in the end it never happened. People in Cuijk stopped that plan, they found the money waste.
Coffee and energy drinks are the runners, yet his business also looks a lot like a mini drugstore. “I had chatgpt determined the range. I asked: what can you sell at a station? What are the handy travel products? That’s all this came out. Especially long -lasting products.”
Once Mika had to help someone in a different way. “Someone fainted and ended up on the track. That was very moving. Fortunately there were boas in the area. I then went there with my first aid case to assist.”
Around three o’clock in the afternoon he closes the doors of his store and with it that of the waiting room and takes – of course – the train towards his other track, in Boxmeer: where he works the Chinese restaurant of his parents -in -law. He has to go on until nine in the evening. Whether he thinks it is a tough combination? “Usually I can sit in the store. But to be honest, I have underestimated it a bit. I will fall asleep very quickly when I am at home in the evening,” he says with a smile.
But he doesn’t like giving up his business at the station. “If it had to close again, it would feel like the project has failed. I just think it’s important that something is here for people.”
The story of
Do you want to share your story with us? That’s possible! Editors from Omroep Brabant are also in Vierlingsbeek, Boxmeer and Cuijk this Wednesday. You are welcome to share your story with us.
Wednesday we will be at Spoorshop Cuijk in the waiting room of Cuijk station.
But you can always email us on [email protected] Or call 040 – 294 94 92.
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