A house that has stood for over a century

In 1923 Kristoffer Berntin Johnsen finished his trading house on the new steamship quay in Våge. For 71 years the store was the meeting point of the village, first with Kristoffer behind the counter, then his son Kåre, and finally Torvald and Nelly Hillesvik. When the store closed in 1994, the houses stood waiting by the quay.

The new chapter came a year later. The restaurant opened as "Mandelhuset ett rom og kjøkken" (one room and a kitchen), named after a family business roasting almonds in Bergen. Locals simply called it Mandelhuset, or the Almond, and in 2017 "one room and a kitchen" left the logo too. The houses have grown one by one: the warehouse became Sjøhuset in 2009, the banquet hall arrived in 2017, and in 2020 the old boathouse got new life a few metres up the shore.

After the pandemic, 145 new co-owners from the village and friends of the house came aboard. That is how Mandelhuset became a true people's restaurant: owned by the people who use it, run for everyone who stops by.

We want to push our industry in the right direction. That means Norwegian produce and local suppliers where possible, conscious purchasing, less waste and responsible care of our houses.