The Dutch brown café

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About The Dutch brown café

The Dutch brown café is a company with a local service area.

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Dark wood, ceilings yellowed by decades of smoke, and a bar where you can sit alone without it being noticed.

Why brown

From tobacco staining on walls and ceiling. Since the 2008 smoking ban no more accumulates, but in the oldest cafés it is still there.

The sand

A few of the oldest still scatter sand on the floor, a habit from when people spat. Folklore now, but genuine folklore.

What there is to eat

Bitterballen, tosti, uitsmijter, sometimes a dish of the day. No kitchen in the modern sense, and that is not the point.

The kopstootje

Jenever beside a beer, the glass filled to the brim. In cafés with their own jenever cabinet this is still an ordinary order.

The regular

Every brown café has a fixed core at the bar. As a visitor you are not in the way there, and that difference from a modern bar is the whole character.

Where to look

The Jordaan in Amsterdam, central Utrecht, and almost any old town centre.