From teenager to superhero (Lokaal)

From teenager to superhero (Lokaal)

Lokaal is a restaurant different than others. It’s not only about food. The most important are people and the journey - of the owner and every customer individually. To become that kind of place, Lokaal needed to wait for the right moment. Arno’s journey, which led him to make this place, is full of growth and self-development. That evokes deeper thoughts. What is pushing people to be better and encouraging others to do the same? Arno is one of the good guys, who is promoting good values. He is not judging people by their choices - he is just simply making better choices more possible. Let’s join his own personal journey to find a place for yourself. Remember: the answer doesn’t have to be far away, it could be in your local neighborhood.

Arno wasn’t one of those teenagers, who knows what future they want for themselves. He was a searcher, trying different life ways in two fields: work and sustainability. When he was 18, he already felt that he wanted to help society, but in a different way than social work. He studied sociology, but when it came to making a decision about work for life, he still had to figure it out. He started by trying many temporary jobs, to find his path.

“When you're 18, you have to make a choice that defines the rest of your life. I really had lots of stress about that. So I ended up doing lots of entries like small temporary jobs, working in factories. Quite sucked, actually, but it was nice in a way that it showed me what I didn't want to do. That's also very helpful.”

Arno was looking for something that would match his feelings. He started working at restaurants, but it was never the kind of place he thought it should be.

“In all the other restaurants I worked at before this, there was something that bothered me. Lots of businesses did it for the profit and not really for something else.”

Although it is understandable that restaurants need to earn money and that’s the purpose of running them - Arno was looking for something different. That slowly led him to realize what direction he wanted for himself. “So I wanted to do something with food and with urban agriculture also.”

Arno went to work on an organic farm for 2 months during holiday, to check if that way of living and working is matching him. “I learned to respect the farmer by working there because it's really tough work. But I think for me it wasn't challenging enough. So I ended up opening a restaurant and harvesting our own vegetables as well.” During that journey, Arno discovered the work that made him happy. He put all effort into searching on different fields and found what he was looking for.

However, if you think that Arno was ecologically and fair trade - friendly from the beginning, you are wrong. He needed to reach that moment in his life as well. It was another journey. He needed to discover many things, learn how to do it, meet new people and their way of living. Arno’s journey is motivating

“I wouldn't say I was pro-ecological my whole life. I was born in 1990 and I grew up looking at lots of action movies. They had good and bad characters and I always wanted to be like one of the good guys to save the world. It is very generally speaking and quite unrealistic. I think I wanted to help the world rather than save it. For me it was a whole search of how to do that in the best way. And I think it all was thanks to the people that I met along my life. I remember my mother was sometimes a vegetarian, so the first notes of people not eating meat, I got from her. My ex-girlfriend grew up in a sustainable family. (...) She was really trying to run the household in a very ecological way and it opened up my eyes on how this other way is done.”

Arno’s journey is motivating us to never give up and still look for our best possible future. His life is a constant journey, but maybe it’s a perfect way to live our lives - constantly getting better, step by step. Lokaal is not only a restaurant - it has become a place to stay, not only to eat. It’s a place to take a break from life’s journey, gather energy and move on.

Geschreven door Aleksandra Białas

Foto's door Sarah Van Looy

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