No, we do not keep bees. The name comes from a name badge on a horse farm in 2002, on which Backström simply would not fit.
It is the question that comes across the bar most often, usually somewhere between the ordering and the bringing: do you keep bees? No. There is no hive, there is no beekeeper, and we buy the honey for the hive salad like everybody else.
The real answer makes less sense and is a good deal more fun.
A name badge that was too small
South Africa, 2002, a horse farm. Our surname is Backström. That is a perfectly good name, except when it has to fit on a badge that was not built for it.
Somebody shortened it to "The B's". That is what the badge said, and that is what stuck.
From The B's to a hive
Years later we were doing markets. A stall needs a name, and "The B's" was ours by then. From B's to bees is one letter, and from bees to a hive is one thought:
Everything good ends up in the hive anyway.
That was the name of the stall. It is now the name of the eetcafé.
Why the name moved to Zuilen with us
When we got the keys here we briefly considered inventing something new. Something Dutch, something with Zuilen in it, something that explains what we do before you walk in.
We did not. A name that has followed a family around for more than twenty years is not marketing any more, it is a nickname. You do not reinvent one because you have moved house.
And then Dutch turned out to help
What we had not seen coming: this country hands you puns for free once there is a bee in your name. Bij-zonder, the Dutch for special, with the word for bee sitting inside it. Bij-zig, busy, the same trick.
So no, we do not keep bees.
Not yet.