Eugene Block

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Eugen Block (born September 13, 1940 in Harkebrugge / Barßel near Oldenburg ) is a Hamburg- based entrepreneur. Eugen Block Holding now owns 16 companies with over 2200 employees who achieved sales of around 340 million euros in 2014. The group's well-known brands include the Block House steak house , the Jim Block burger chain and the Hotel Grand Elysée.

Life

Block was born into a family of innkeepers in the Oldenburger Münsterland , but his mother wanted to become a priest . After secondary school, he instead did an apprenticeship in gastronomy and then worked as a waiter in Paris, London and New York. There he developed the idea of selling steaks in special restaurants in Germany as well .

In 1968 Block opened its first Block House in Hamburg-Winterhude . In 1972, after a block house had also been built in Hamburg-Wandsbek , the company began its own production to supply its restaurants, initially with sauces and later with meat from its own butcher's shop . There is now a central food production facility in Zarrentin am Schaalsee , which also supplies foreign companies. In 1973 the Jim Block brand was created to use leftover meat from steak production in the form of hamburgers . In 2015, the group of companies included 36 of its own steak houses, eleven burger restaurants, eight franchise businesses abroad, the butcher, Block Menu as a provider of convenience food and Block Foods for the sale of products in the grocery and wholesaling sectors.

There are also other restaurants in Hamburg and on the Schaalsee, a share in the Hansens brewery in Flensburg, the private brewery Blockbräu near the St. Pauli landing stages . In addition, Eugen Block had stakes in the Saarland Airlines airline in the 1990s and founded the ambitious Hamburg Airlines in 1988 , which he discontinued in 1997 as unprofitable.

Grand Elysée Hamburg (left) at the Moorweide

In 1985, Block opened the Hotel Elysee in Hamburg-Rotherbaum , built jointly with Robert Vogel , which was expanded to 511 rooms in 2005/2006 with an investment volume of 103 million euros through an extension to the Moorweidenpark and renamed the Grand Elysée Hamburg .

In September 2018, Block announced that it would build a four-star plus hotel in Berlin-Mitte on Tiergartenstrasse from 2019 with an investment volume of around 40 million euros .

His companies have been named "best employer" several times. He himself is regarded as a patriarch who is not afraid of exchanging executives , who at the same time tries very hard for the well-being of the other employees, some of whom have remained loyal to him for decades. The hotel directors of the Grand Elysée only retained their position for an average of two years, while the Reeperbahn area below him is out of the question as a location for a company with a view to female employees.

Patriarch Eugen Block has already announced his age-related withdrawal from operational business several times without actually doing it. By his 75th birthday in September 2015, his successor should have been settled. In the summer of 2016, he then handed over his chairmanship of the supervisory board of the holding company to Hans Fabian Kruse, Hellmut Kruse's son .

Block collects art with a focus on regional representational painting, including works by the Hamburg Secession and the North German Realists . The collection is accessible in the public areas of the Grand Elysée Hotel.

Private

Eugen Block is married and has three children with his wife Christa, who each have an eight percent stake in his company and are members of the advisory board. His older son Dirk was temporarily its managing director, but lost this position again and went into business as a franchisee for a chain of Italian restaurants. In 2015 he opened the “SoHo Chicken” in Hamburg. His daughter Christina also founded her own company with a small bistro chain, while Philipp, as the youngest, initially became an educator , before later joining his father's meat trade like his brother-in-law. Eugen Block's sister Marlies Head (* 1942) was the owner of the Madison Hotel in Hamburg-Neustadt until 2009 .

Eugen Block is politically close to the CDU and occasionally puts Christian ideals above economic interests. According to his own statements, he voted for the AfD in the 2013 federal election . He is a supporter of whole foods according to Max Otto Bruker .

Honors

On December 13, 2010, Eugen Block received the "Hamburger of the Year" award from the TV station Hamburg 1 for his life's work .
On September 11, 2017, Eugen Block was awarded the Hamburg Founder's Prize for his life's work.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Anna Marohn: The eternal founder. In: The time . April 16, 2015, accessed August 24, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Eugen Block found a financial partner. Now things are moving forward with the hotel construction , abendblatt.de from August 31, 1983 (accessed on September 12, 2018)
  3. ↑ Test accommodation in a first-class hotel , July 15, 1985 (accessed on September 12, 2018)
  4. ↑ This is where Eugen Block's luxury block is growing , Abendblatt.de from August 2, 2005 (accessed September 12, 2018)
  5. ↑ Hamburg entrepreneur Eugen Block builds luxury hotel at the Tiergarten , abendblatt.de from September 11, 2018 (accessed September 12, 2018)
  6. ↑ Entrepreneur and clan boss. Patriarch Eugen Block - Portrait of a Driven Person, Abendblatt.de, July 8, 2011 (accessed September 12, 2018)
  7. ↑ Eugen Block: "I overestimated myself" , zeit.de from June 30, 2016 (accessed on September 12, 2018)
  8. ↑ " Bringing heart, brain and hand into harmony" , WamS from February 12, 2017 (accessed on September 12, 2018)
  9. ↑ Unique collection block. In: www.grand-elysee.com. Retrieved February 29, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Hotel manager celebrates her birthday , WamS from March 18, 2012 (accessed on September 12, 2018)
  11. ^ Career: Gasthaus Block as the basis of success , NWZonline.de from March 9, 2012 (accessed on September 12, 2018)
  12. ↑ Eugen Block: The eternal founder. Page 2/2: "Like the mother of the company" , DIE ZEIT No. 16/2015, from April 16, 2015
  13. ↑ Camilla John: These are the Hamburgers of the year. (Access with subscription). In: Hamburger Abendblatt . December 13, 2010, accessed August 24, 2015 .
  14. ↑ These are Hamburg's best entrepreneurs. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . September 12, 2017. Retrieved September 14, 2017 .

Web links

Commons : Eugen Block Holding  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Block, Eugene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Harkebrugge