Pintjes: best-selling zine celebrates Place du Jeu de Balle’s best cafés
The award-winning Brussels café zine Pintjes returns for its third edition on 11 December, this time celebrating the folksy cafés of Brussels’ most iconic square.
PINTJES, the zine celebrating Brussels’ unique café culture, is set to launch its third edition this week at the iconic CHAFF on Place du Jeu de Balle. This edition of the zine - its third - captures the square and its iconic folkloric cafés at a moment of change. With several having disappeared in recent years, and others in the news because they are at risk of closure or changing ownership, this edition of PINTJES sets off on the mammoth task of visiting each and every one of the square’s bars over the course of a Saturday. With the wider Marolles neighbourhood undergoing its own evolution, as Sablonification creeps down Rue Haute, the zine is not just a survey of some excellent places to drink, but a snapshot of an iconic Brussels neigbhourhood in transition.
PINTJES is a collaborative zine produced by renowned Brussels-based illustrator Selkies, who has worked with Irish musicians Kneecap, and writer Eoghan Walsh, author of the award-winning book “A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects”. Since its first sold-out edition in 2024, the zine has received critical acclaim and has won a bronze medal at the North American Guild of Beer Writers awards.
Launch Party
Pintjes Vol.3 will be released at a launch party at CHAFF (Vossenplein 21, Brussels, Belgium, 1000 Bruxelles) on Thursday 11 December, alongside the sale of a very limited number of exclusive prints from this and previous editions, and a short walking tour of the neighbhourhood.
The zine will be produced in extremely limited quantities - it’s not for sale online, it’s not reproduced online, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.
You can read an excerpt from the latest edition here.
Quotes
“Place du Jeu de Balle would be nothing without its cafés, and the cafes would be nothing without the energy of the square’s flea market,” Eoghan says. “But now more than ever, this essential corner of folkloric Brussels life is under existential pressure - because of the cost of living, the crisis in Brussels’ horeca market, and the creep of gentrification from the centre down Rue Blaes and Rue Haute. We’ve already seen iconic bastions of the square close, like La Brocante, and the future of others like the Clef D’Or threatened. With this latest edition of PINTJES we don’t want just to capture what makes them great or celebrate their existence, but to remind us Bruxellois why we need them to survive.”
“This area is really close to my heart despite (or maybe as a result) of being one of the most chaotic spots in the city. There's always so much going on, and no matter the time of day there’s always something worth stopping for,” Selkies says. “To be able to capture its iconic and essential cafés at a moment when their futures have never been more uncertain has been a joy, and an honour. I just cannot imagine Saturdays at the flea market without at least one (and usually two or three) pitstops in the square’s cafés.”
Notes for the Editor
Selkies is an illustrator from Dublin now living in Brussels. Her work is often about nostalgia, sometimes for her roots back in Ireland and sometimes for the remnants of old Brussels on her doorstep. She has worked with football clubs, music festivals, and musicians. Pintjes is her first self-published zine, and her work is for sale here: www.selkiesstudio.com
Eoghan Walsh is the award-winning Brussels-based writer of the “Brussels Notes” newsletter. He has written for The Irish Times, Pellicle, Le Fooding, Guzzle, and others. Founder of the Brussels Beer City blog, Eoghan’s most recent book - “A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects” - was published in July 2022.