There are brown pubs and there are brown pubs. Café Hoppe falls into a category apart. The building at number 18 on the Spui is a national monument, interior and exterior unchanged over the centuries. The antique gin and liqueur tins behind the bar are not decoration: they have been there so long that no one knows exactly when they were put there. You sit down at a place where Freddy Heineken was a regular and where a young Princess Beatrix once drank a beer.
Current owners Jan-Wieger van der Linden and Pepijn Zonneveld run a café that took its current form in the 1930s. It was Harry Mustert who merged number 18 and the adjacent number 20 and gave the whole place the name Hoppe. Number 20, formerly a hotel and restaurant, became the ‘seated Hoppe,’ with tables and chairs. Number 18 remained the ‘standing Hoppe’: a classic bar stool-like setup where you stand with a lager in your hand, talking to whoever is standing next to you. Politically, the pub also meant something: Hans van Mierlo laid the foundation for what would become D66 here.
The interior of the standing Hoppe is the kind of space you immediately recognize when you enter. Dark from the wood, light from the lamps above the bar, and that unmistakable smell you only encounter in real brown bars. On the Spui, a large partially covered terrace runs along the façade, where half the neighborhood seems to settle on nice days. The bar staff has been there an average of twenty years, which you notice: everyone is recognized, no one has to repeat their order twice.
The bar staff has been there an average of twenty years, which you notice: everyone is recognized, no one has to repeat their order twice.
Each year, Hoppe hosts a series of regular events. The Herring Party in the spring has a benefit auction for the Emma Children's Hospital. Fish Day in June follows for 120 guests and the Street Party for 160. In November, works by local and well-known artists hang on the wall, such as Cobra artist Eugene Brands in 2016. And in the fall, the Bokbiernight closes the season. The Spui has seen many changes over the years. Hoppe hasn't.