Bolsward has 44 places, of which 26 give opening hours, 59 per cent. Of those, 50 per cent work past eleven. Some 43 per cent have no online presence.
That 50 per cent is high for a town of ten thousand, and the by-law explains it. Public premises here are shut between one and six, night venues only from four; terraces must be empty by one. Bolsward is moreover, with Sneek, one of the two official hospitality concentration zones of this large municipality. For a town of this size that is exceptional.
The 43 per cent without an online presence is not so easily explained. What lies beside it: the population fell from 10,140 in 2013 to 9,963 now, 26 per cent are over sixty-five, and income stands at 29,500 euro.
Boalsert, as it is called in Frisian, received town rights in 1455 from Philip the Good and belongs to the eleven Frisian towns. The Martinikerk was built between 1446 and 1466 and gained an organ by Hinsz in 1781; the town hall is Frisian renaissance of 1614 to 1617. Here the poet Gysbert Japicx was born in 1603.
Brewing goes on still: the Frisian brewery sits in the town, with a distillery of its own beside it.