Unseen: Jeanine (79) has been running Ponderosa for sixty years, the café where time has stood still. “It was a ball here every day, and the party hats are still ready.”

“What if we were to start a café here? With three unmarried daughters, that would be quite a challenge here.” It was 1961 when father De Pauw said those words. Sixty years later, his daughter Jeanine is still standing in the Ponderosa, the café in Mere along the Oudenaardsesteenweg with sansevierias in the windows — stylishly coiffed, her nails in soft pink and with a glass of high-end cava. She turns 80 on July 30. Fuses? Not until health dictates. And according to her doctor, she can live another sixteen years with her second pacemaker.

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