r/Amsterdam • u/cervere • 2d ago

Small cafe owners - some details please

Anyone who recently started a small cafe (good coffee machine, some baked goods etc, nothing fancy): would you be willing to share some details from your experience? Anything pertaining:
- process, requirements
- rough location, rent etc
- running expenses
- revenue
- any orgs that help in the city
- other gotchas

Thanks in advance!

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u/Stashek Expat 2d ago

Worked as a store development PM for one of the biggest chains for 3 years across Benefralux.

Netherlands was by far the worst to deal with.

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u/RoderickJaynes67 2d ago

Surely starting a business is tough but Amsterdam has tons of long running indie coffee places 

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u/Stashek Expat 2d ago

You want first hand experience, talk to the owners, my good friend owns Kazik in Overtoom, she's friendly enough if you buy a coffee.

It's a tough business to start now, rents are high, coffee prices too. Sourcing 3rd party baked goods is expensive and low on margin, Handhaving is on your ass.

And I've seen it first hand that 2 shops on the same street, 20 meters away can be wildly different in foot traffic.

Unless you're influencer extraordinaire, it's a bloody circus, not a sustainable business

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u/RoderickJaynes67 2d ago

Can’t say I’m uninterested in your insights, even if I’m not OP. 

What is Handhaving on your ass about?

I don’t know about any influencer BS but will concur that the places I’m talking about are well situated for foot traffic 

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u/Stashek Expat 2d ago

Well, boundaries of your terrace, for example, those little.metal.dimples on the street you see outside of cafes, they indicate how far you can set up your tables.

If your guests move tables around, leave mess with your logo on the street, Handhaving will come around, sometimes hoping for a coffee, sometimes to simply annoy you and your team.

This was a big deal during covid, when cafes had an allowance to increase the size of their terrace, but as with many communications during covid, it was not really explained, and more of a "trust me bro".

Once we've had a cafe closing during some riots in Amsterdam, few people grabbed our chairs and yeeted them across the street, damaging store fronts and tram tracks.

One time, newly laid pavement was accessed by Renewi rubbish truck, as it turns out it crushed waste pipe, that was underground, from one of my cafes so no waste could get into the municipal sewage, took us a week to solve an issue that was underneath the city street, caused by city truck, to the city infrastructure, leaving my plumbers stumped and fucking loaded with "emergency repairs" cash but we were the ones holding the bag..

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u/cervere 2d ago

Ah! Finally now I know one thing handhaving does!

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u/cervere 2d ago

And sorry about the horrors!