Quite the Journey
Grand Hotel de Draak is the oldest hotel and also the oldest company in the Netherlands. A visit to our hotel will take you back to the Middle Ages with contemporary comfort. Bergen op Zoom has a beautiful shopping centre, possesses more than 300 national monuments, including the Markiezenhof (1485), the Peperbus (1370), the Ravelijn (1703); it is an undiscovered pearl in the south-west of the Netherlands. In 2022, we will celebrate its 625 years of uninterrupted hospitality. De Draak has 62 4-star superior hotel rooms, 2 meeting rooms, Restaurant 1397, Wellness and Fitness.
De Draak is one of the oldest buildings in Bergen op Zoom. On May 7, 1397, Bergen op Zoom was hit by a city fire, which burned down almost the entire city. Only two buildings were spared, De Olifant and De Draak, both on the Grote Markt. Nobody knows exactly how old De Draak is, because the city archives were also completely lost during that city fire. The cellars under the building show that it is quite possible that De Draak existed for at least 100 years before the devastating city fire broke out. In any case, from 1406 De Draak is mentioned again in the newly constructed city archives as a city inn. Also in the 15th century a city fire raged in Bergen op Zoom. Nothing specific about De Draak is immediately known about this fire, except that it is certain that the building also survived that fire.
On 6 December 1984, the Hazen family bought Hotel De Draak. In 1994, the former vicarage was bought from the then owner GE Plastics (now SABIC), which had its offices there. After renovation, this building also became a place to eat and sleep. In 1999, the company expanded further with the purchase of the Wapen van Henegouwen on Fortuinstraat. This building was formerly home to the Fortune brewery, which is where the name Fortuinstraat originates from. Under the Hazen family's management, a Mediterranean restaurant was opened on the ground floor and the former Hotel de Gouden Leeuw was added to Hotel De Draak on the upper floors.
History repeats itself. It is quite a sequence of events in the centuries-old history of Hotel De Draak that, after 425 years, the building in the Fortuinstraat becomes part of Hotel De Draak again.
On 26 February 2013, a major fire broke out in the brand-new wellness centre that had just been in use for 4 months. The damage proved to be gigantic. The cleaning, rebuilding and refurbishing of the hotel rooms in the monumental building took no less than 15 months, due to the extensive fire damage. The historical features have been preserved in the new hotel rooms and the furnishings meet all the requirements of the modern hotel guest. Thanks to the Hazen family's enthusiasm, the hotel rose like a phoenix from the ashes. They feel privileged to be part of the centuries-old history of De Draak and to be able to help steer what will hopefully be a centuries-old future. The Hazen family calls this policy 'Sustainable stewardship'.
