The situation has deteriorated significantly since Covid. “We lost our tourist clientele with the Covid, they never really returned. We also lived thanks to the large companies – banks, insurance companies – which had their head offices in town. Their employees came at lunchtime. But, with teleworking, they no longer come”continues the Tollet heir. Who is very angry with the Brussels public authorities.
“After Yvan Mayeur, we had Philippe Close… They screwed up Brussels“, continues Didier Tollet. In question: “dirt, insecurity, drugs… This had a direct impact on our turnover. The city center has become impoverished, there is no longer any customer base for a store like that in the center of the capital. When we suggest to our customers in our Waterloo or Woluwe Shopping stores that they go into town to find this or that brand, they all answer: “Ah no, we’re not going down to town.”
“Our stores in Waterloo and Woluwe Shopping Center are performing very well.”
For the record, the Tollet sign on rue des Fripiers has been robbed on numerous occasions. “About ten years ago, our jewelry store was robbed 4 or 5 times in two years, I had a gun pointed at my stomach”remembers Didier Tollet, specifying immediately that this wave of robberies had nothing to do with the situation in the neighborhood but was the work of international gangs.
Insecurity… but also mobility, Didier Tollet also deplores the Good Move regional mobility plan – “A few weeks ago, it took me 1h50 to go from Woluwe Shopping to the store on rue des Fripiers” – and destroys the Brussels Minister in charge of Mobility Elke Van den Brandt (Groen): “She’d better go to Antwerp and manage mobility at Bart De Wever.”. Antwerp which, by the way, has for several years prohibited non-Antwerp residents from parking on streets in its city center.
However, the Tollet house is doing well. “Our stores in Waterloo and Woluwe Shopping Center are performing very well.” Only the one in the city center no longer works. “We had a very nice clientele there. Now she comes to Woluwe and Waterloo. In Waterloo, we have many customers living in Uccle. They no longer want to go to the center of Brussels.” Didier Tollet will also open a second store in Waterloo. 100 meters from the first store, along the Chaussée de Bruxelles. “It will be a completely different conceptexplains Didier Tollet. “There will only be jewelry.” Opening planned for the month of May.
However, several renowned jewelry stores still find their place in the center of Brussels. At De Greef, located on rue au Beurre since… 1848, we remain very fond of the city center. “We are very happy with our location between the Grand-Place and the Bourse.”comments Sacha Wittmann. Before Covid, the Wittmann family had invested 2 million euros in their store. “We are in favor of pedestrianization. Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done, but within five years, it will be magnificent. The Stock Exchange has become a superb setting, the Oxy project (former administrative city in De Brouckère, Editor’s note) is going to be magnificent, Eataly will be set up on Boulevard Anspach, etc.”
“Coming to the city center by car is not complicated”
“I understand what Didier Tollet means about customers’ disgust with traffic to cross Brussels. We hear it every day too but it is largely linked to what people hear in the media. Coming to the city center by car is not complicated. There are plenty of parking lots. Crossing the city center is more complicated. As for insecurity in the city, Sacha Wittmann does not share his colleague’s feelings. “I have never felt or experienced any problem, even going out with a De Greef bag in hand. I feel less secure in the upper part of town where all the luxury brands are concentrated.”
If Tollet leaves the city center, other major watch brands are arriving there. Certainly not a stone’s throw from the pedestrian area but rather in the Sablon district. The arrival of a brand from the Swiss brand Jaeger-LeCoultre is announced, while Breitling and IWC Schaffhausen, the famous American watch brand, have just left their suitcases there.
