A Brown Café Since 1670
Café Hoppe has stood on the Spui, one of Amsterdam's central squares, since 1670, making it one of the city's oldest continuously operating cafés and a fixture of the square for more than three centuries. It belongs to the tradition of the "brown café", the classic Amsterdam bar style named for the dark wood panelling and tobacco-stained walls that give these rooms their warm, worn appearance. Hoppe's original room, at number 18, has kept its historic form through the centuries and is now officially protected as a monument, one of the more intact examples of this style of interior left in the city.
Two Buildings Become One
For most of its history the café occupied only number 18. Around 1900 the business expanded into the building next door at number 20, which had previously operated as a hotel and restaurant. The two addresses were formally joined in the 1930s under the ownership of Harry Mustert, who closed the hotel, cut a connecting passage through the dividing wall, and gave the café the layout it still has today: a standing bar at number 18 and a seated section at number 20, each retaining a slightly different character despite being part of the same business.
Political and Public Figures
Café Hoppe's location near the Amsterdam city centre made it a natural meeting point over the centuries, and its history includes several notable visitors. The politician Hans van Mierlo is associated with founding the liberal party D66 at the café, and the future Queen Beatrix visited as a young princess. The brewer Freddy Heineken was also a personal visitor, tying the café into Amsterdam's wider business history as well as its political one.
Recognition and Ownership
The café's reputation has continued into the present day: trade magazine Misset Horeca named it the best café in the Netherlands in 2013, and its house wine won separate awards in 2012 and 2013, recognition that sits alongside its long list of historic regulars rather than replacing it. It is currently run by Jan-Wieger van der Linden and Pepijn Zonneveld, who have kept the café's traditional character while extending its opening hours to include breakfast and lunch service alongside its long-standing evening trade.
Café Hoppe Today
The café still serves a wide range of Dutch beers alongside jenever, the traditional Dutch gin, served in the older style associated with brown cafés, poured to the brim in a tulip-shaped glass, rather than as a cocktail ingredient. Between its protected 17th-century room, its list of historic visitors and its continued recognition within the Dutch hospitality trade, Café Hoppe remains one of the clearest surviving examples of Amsterdam's brown café tradition still in daily use.