Cafes and restaurants in Kampen

Kampen has 149 places, of which 109 give opening hours, 73 per cent. Of those, 59 per cent open on a Sunday, by far the lowest share among these fourteen towns, and 32 per cent work past eleven. Some 26 per cent have no online presence.

Here that Sunday figure is a rule and not a habit. In the municipality of Kampen shops may not open on a Sunday; supermarkets have a window of roughly twelve to six. That line is carried by the council: at the municipal elections of 2026 the ChristenUnie, SGP and CDA together took 16 of the 31 seats and some 46 per cent of the vote.

There is a second reason why things go quiet early. Kampen was a town of theology for generations, but the last theological university left for Utrecht in 2024. With it went the student public that fills the late hours elsewhere.

The town itself is old and rich in gables: a Hanseatic place on the IJssel with a trading past traceable into the thirteenth century. Then came cigars. The first works opened in 1826, around 1880 some 1,400 people were employed in the trade, and one maker is left. The Kamper ui’jes the town is teased about, incidentally, are not a dish but a genre of tall tales.