People living in one of Amsterdam’s most exclusive neighbourhoods have taken the city to court for licensing a chip shop that has gone viral on TikTok. On busy days, the queue for Fabel Friet on Runstraat stretches across a bridge on the Keizersgracht – one of Amsterdam’s most famous canals – a court was told last week. The narrow street itself is crowded by tourists waiting for their orders seven days a week.
And loitering with intent – on parked cars, on the street itself, and on steps and porches – gulls wait to swoop. It gets filthy food on our doorsteps and mayonnaise in the beautiful stone. The herring gulls have moved in as residents, and the worst thing is the rat infestation.” Nineteen neighbours have formally protested against the business licence for Fabel Friet, whose signature product is fries topped with parmesan cheese and truffle mayonnaise.
Niek van der Heijden, the lead plaintiff, said the problem was the takeaway’s small size. We want Fabel to go to a place where there is enough room to have clients inside.” In a packed courtroom on Tuesday morning, a lawyer for Amsterdam city council acknowledged that the city’s mayor, Femke Halsema, can refuse a licence to operate if the “residential and living environment” is negatively affected by a business. While the chip shop, she said, sticks to its licence obligations to manage the queue and clear litter “it has been going on for a long time, the impact remains severe, and you have to ask: how long can we tolerate this?” For the current licence, she said, the city would be guided by the court’s ruling.
The shop’s owners, Abel Klatser and Floris Feilzer, said they employed a cleaning service seven days a week, four times a day, and that year-on-year visitor numbers had dropped by 23% this August after they opened four new locations. A lot of much older retail spaces have lost their local clients because they don’t want to go there any more,” she said. Rogier Havelaar, a councillor from the Christian Democratic Appeal party, said that, while Fabel Friet should probably be offered a “flagship store” licence in a more suitable location, the benefits of tourism to the city should not be overlooked.
Amsterdam would have a gigantic financial problem if tourism went away.” Standing on the bridge over the Keizersgracht, some German laboratory apprentices drawn by TikTok were enjoying their chips. Natalie Stübben said crowd managers had just asked them to move away from people’s houses. This court case is part of the parasitic industry that lives on tourists.”
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