The Prodigal Son

Older Mechelen residents still remember the café as De Verloren Zoon (The Lost Son), which opened in the late 1960s. It quickly became a controversial hippie café where drugs were sold. The management of the Scheppers Institute, the Lorette Institute, and the TSM (Technical School Mechelen) were terrified that their students would enter De Verloren Zoon. This, of course, made the café even more popular.