On the far western coast of Norway, forty kilometres beyond the city of Bergen, sits the town of Glesvær. It was first mentioned in 1664, and it’s long been a gathering point, where up to 140 vessels could gather at any one time. In 1890, the trading town was sold at auction to Hans Gulbrandsen Bakke, whose son Arne Bakke built a stone quay in 1910. Today, the site is still owned by the Bakke family.

Yet much else has changed. The quay now hosts Glesvær Kafé, a local institution situated in a building that dates back to and maintains its original interior from 1925. In fact, the café is a cultural heritage site in full operation, and the owner and chef, Jon Steinar Midlang, has a passion for preserving the history and traditions of the place.

Jon Steinar has been in the hospitality business since 1998, when he opened his first café. But when he was given the opportunity to take over Glesvær in 2002, he seized it. With his own space, he had the chance to expand and open whenever he chose—and that was the start of Glesvær Kafé and catering.

“We’ve been open almost every day since 2002”, Jon says. “I’ve been working 10 to 12 hours a day, almost every day for 20 years.”

As the local community can attest, Jon Steinar can always be found at his café, where he works alongside his wife and a team of more than 10 employees. The staff consists mostly of students from the nearby area, but they have also welcomed workers from different countries such as Thailand, Poland, and Lithuania in the past.

In fact, while Jon may do most of the cooking, he also spends a lot of his time aboard his boat. In 2005, Jon Steinar acquired the building of a nearby former crab factory, which he turned into a catering and food storage facility. He can reach it by driving for 15 minutes or taking a short boat ride. But, on a busy day, he may have to go back and forth by boat 10 times.

“If I go to pick up some tomatoes from our storage facility, and get back and realise I forgot the lemons, then it’s back out again on the boat!”, he laughs.

Alongside regular openings at the café, Jon and his team also do catering for local events.

“We cater for weddings, but we don’t host them—we have so many guests here at the weekends that they’re our main focus! The building next door offers accommodation with 40 beds, so we cooperate with them by providing food to conference guests”, he says.

The café also hosts concerts and art exhibitions, and has become a popular venue for cultural events. For instance, it hosts pyjama races, ice-bathing events on the first weekend in January, and, further up the quay, there’s the annual Periphery Festival.

Yet the focus of the café is the food. Jon and his team prepare a menu of traditional dishes, such as dried and salted clipfish, as well as some crab. They make a lot of bacalao, fish gratin, Norwegian and French fish soups, and fish and chips, an ever-popular favourite. Fish makes up the core of the menu—and they’re lucky to be able to buy it fresh straight from a local fish market.

“We are most proud of the fact that we have a stable business that does well year after year. It’s clear that customers realise what we put into it, so they come back again and again. We’re better known now than before, having built up our café for the past 20 years. And with better signage people find their way here”, he says.

“We work hard to make it a safe workplace for us and our staff. As long as sales are where they are now, we’re happy and can keep going. It’s so rewarding to pay wages to our kind employees, knowing that our company helps them make a living. We couldn’t wish for anything better. If anything, we’d like to have more customers in the low season, and a little less in the summer!”.