Le Cercueil (“The Coffin”) Bar, Brussels, Belgium

Drinking beer out of skulls and setting your beer down on a glass-topped coffin with a skeleton inside. Fluorescent lights that turn white to purple and sinister bathroom doors. A small, almost obscure doorway opening to a dark, narrow hallway leading you inside - this bar was made for Halloween.  

Le Cercueil (“The Coffin”) in Brussels, Belgium has been parked on a side street off the Grand Place for eons, and it is definitely the tourist trap you read about. But, one beer couldn’t hurt, just for the experience of it all. My flight attendant friend and I ordered up some Belgian Barbãr beers - “The Warrior’s Reward” beer - which were promptly poured into skulls. Tiny place, so we made friends, some Brits out celebrating. 

The bathroom door, with a big headed, minatory skull vacantly staring back at me, made me miss the universal placard of June Cleaver (with devil horns, no less), but I did notice the pink ribbon on the hat and was pretty sure that meant the women’s restroom. I guess I wasn’t the only one confused since a woman came out of the men’s restroom as I exited the women’s, all flustered when she saw me, which just as well could be chalked up to those potent Belgian beers.