Café 't Mandje

Café 't Mandje — the name simply means 'The Little Basket' — opened on the Zeedijk in 1927 under the management of Bet van Beeren, a lesbian biker and entrepreneur who ran the bar until 1967. Her portrait still hangs inside. The bar closed after her death and reopened in 1983, restored by her niece, and has been running continuously since as a monument to Amsterdam's queer history and a genuinely working bar. The interior is unlike anything else in the city: low-ceilinged, dark, and covered from floor to ceiling in hanging objects — leather jackets, ties cut from regulars' collars (an old tradition), biker memorabilia, photographs, and decades of accumulated oddities. The Zeedijk location places it in the heart of the leather and bear neighbourhood, a short walk from Warmoesstraat and the Argos bar. Visiting Café 't Mandje is not primarily about the drinks or the music — it is about standing in the oldest surviving gay bar in the Netherlands and understanding something about the city's long tolerance for queer life. The bar is small, gets extremely busy on weekends, and is best experienced on a weekday evening when you can actually see the walls.