Cafes and restaurants in Winschoten

Winschoten has 90 places, of which 59 give opening hours, 66 per cent. Of those, 69 per cent open on a Sunday and 39 per cent work past eleven. Some 34 per cent have no online presence.

That high night share is not an impression but a policy, and a strikingly generous one. Places with an alcohol licence may stay open here until two on weekdays and until five in the morning at weekends. Places without one, meaning the snack bars and cafeterias, may carry on until four on weekdays and until six in the morning at weekends. For a town of this size that is exceptional.

The municipality of Winschoten, incidentally, no longer exists: since 1 January 2010 the place has belonged to Oldambt, of which it is nonetheless the administrative centre.

Winschoten received town rights only in 1825, from king Willem I, after which it grew into the market of the Oldambt; in 2025 those two hundred years were marked. From the century that followed come the synagogue of 1854, the steam pumping station of 1895 and three mills.

The eating is Groningen eating, with the eierbal as its best known invention: an egg in ragout, breaded and deep fried, out of the thrifty nineteen fifties. Since 2017 it has been on the national intangible heritage list, which is neither European protection nor Unesco standing. Of the 18,963 residents, 27 per cent are over sixty-five.