Hub.brussels announces two new pop-up centres for entrepreneurs

Hub.brussels, the capital’s business support agency, inaugurated two new Auberge Espagnole pop-up centres in Jette and Woluwe-Saint-Lambert on Tuesday.

Five years after the first Auberge Espagnole was opened in Etterbeek, and a year after the last one in Saint-Gilles, the two pop-up centres will provide local entrepreneurs the chance to test their commercial concepts in a cut-price location before considering longer-term investments.

"These two new centres are part of the Brussels government's desire to develop any type of initiative and device that allows entrepreneurs, traders and craftsmen to test their ideas before launching," explained Barbara Trachte, Brussels secretary of state for economic transition. "By supporting small businesses, the Region is also promoting the economic transition."

The Auberge Espagnole located on Avenue Georges Henri in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert was designed as a mobile centre. Every six months or so, it will travel from district to district in Brussels in order to meet the demands of the municipalities and to test different locations.

The space is currently occupied by Slo.li, a shop providing sustainable products and services. This Auberge Espagnole will then move to Anderlecht from next July and stay there until the end of January 2023.

The pop-up centre in Jette was opened on Rue Léon Théodor. The shop "D'Almeida – House of Socks" will occupy the space until 31 January.

Hub.brussels currently operates four Auberge Espagnole pop-up shops and the Kokotte hospitality pop-up. Of the 26 projects so far tested out, 18 have led to the opening of a shop.

"With its incubators, hub.brussels fosters the desire to develop a project and get started, while limiting risks, at a particularly uncertain time for merchants," said Isabelle Grippa, chief executive of hub.brussels.

"For more than a year, our agency has been helping sectors weakened by the Covid-19 crisis and for whom the obstacles to entrepreneurship are numerous."