Street food.
Design.
Culture.
Craft.
Concept
Welcome to Reffen – a place where street food, entrepreneurship, craft, culture, music and diverse communities all come together. Reffen came to life in 2018 on a dusty and neglected harbourside lot surrounded by run down workshops and warehouses where the proud shipyard Burmeister & Wain used to rule.
Today it’s a creative playground where talented chefs and artisans share their passion for food and craftsmanship with you.
The people behind Reffen are a group of container romantics and street food aficionados who love Copenhagen and connecting with everyone from everywhere. Our mission was from day one to open up the harbour and share the street food experience with the people.
In union with young entrepreneurs and the thousands of people who visit us every day we have created a unique space in Copenhagen’s harbour – and the biggest street food venue in northern Europe. A place where people from different walks of life from all corners of the World come together to enjoy exciting food, different cultures and good vibes.
A visit to Reffen also includes unexpected experiences such as art and music festivals, grill tennis, drag nights, techno yoga, horror shows, Sankt Hans and new acquaintances.
Reffen is in essence a pulsating hotspot outside the city centre that stimulates all your senses and offers people of all ages an excellent time out of the ordinary.
Vision
Reffen is a hotbed for new entrepreneurs: young chefs and creative artisans offering their delights to curious minds and taste buds.
All the food stall and workshop owners are carefully selected because of their concept, quality and skills and many are family enterprises. We give them the chance to start their own business and help them to develop it and stay atop through guidance and knowledge-sharing. The goal is that they learn how to stand on their own feet and become excellent entrepreneurs.
Dogma
Reffen is designed to blend in with the maritime and industrial surroundings and deliberately embraces a klondike aesthetic with a strong emphasis on reuse. The main part is built up from recycled materials and all the permanent stalls are old containers which couldn’t be used for shipping anymore. Now they are functioning street food kitchens which each have the feel and look of the country that’s cooking in them.
A total of 75 used shipping containers, four old German fire trucks and several outworn vans constitute the main building blocks of Reffen. The result is a colourful and cosmopolitan container city on the harbour quay with narrow streets, twists and corners waiting to be explored.
KLUB Werkstatt
Club Werkstatt is an extraordinary bar and nightclub hosting concerts, DJ-gigs and everything that is vibrant and colourful.
A phenomenal space in what once was a huge engine workshop, combining the building’s industrial past and more than 100 years of maritime history with contemporary art, excellent sounds and mesmerizing lights. Werkstatt reaches its full potential on weekend nights when local and international bands and DJs together with guests from all corners of the world bring the club to a roaming climax.
The old engine workshop is today a fun-loving safe space that celebrates music, dancing and socialising and worships diversity, curiosity and creativity.
Jesper Julian Møller
Jesper is the owner and founder of Reffen, and the man who brought street food to Denmark with the former Copenhagen Street Food – Paper Island. Jesper’s mission has been clear from the beginning: Jesper Julian Møller wants to give the harbour back to the people and support passionate individuals in becoming food entrepreneurs. In the process, he came up with the term independent head chefs.
Ruben Passer
Ruben is the administrative director and captain of Reffen and has also been a part of the organisation since the former Paper Island. Now, he ensures that Reffen stays on course, where he in 2020 revived the vibes of the former Paper Island inside Werkstatt 167 – a 1.000 m2 raw and unpolished old shipyard.
Vincent Dreier
Vincent is the Chief Operating Officer, Jesper’s right hand man and the operational director of the headquarters at Refshalevej. Vincent has experience from Copenhagen Airport and 7-Eleven. He has the overall bird’s eye view of the business and has a constant eye on sales figures, numbers and calculations, however that does not limit his very fine nose for gastronomy and good wine.