De Heeren Van Aemstel

De Heeren van Aemstel is a large brown café and live-music venue at Thorbeckeplein 5, one square off Rembrandtplein in central Amsterdam. Cover bands play every Friday and Saturday, DJs take over until closing, and midweek the room fills with students, birthday drinks and Ajax matches on screen.

Quick facts

Detail	Information
Address	Thorbeckeplein 5, 1017 CS Amsterdam
Type of venue	Café with live bands, DJs, sports screens and a year-round terrace
Opening hours	Wednesday and Thursday 17:00–03:00, Friday and Saturday 16:00–05:00; Monday, Tuesday and Sunday on request for private bookings
Live music	Bands from 21:30 on Friday and 22:30 on Saturday, DJs afterwards
Midweek nights	Stëlz Wednesday (Stëlz €3 all evening) and Student Thursday with student prices on beer and shots
Capacity	Roughly 300 people, plus an upstairs bar that can be reserved for up to 80
Food	No kitchen; bittergarnituur (bitterballen and similar snacks) and pizza from a neighbourhood pizza baker
Contact	020 620 2173 (also WhatsApp) or [email protected]
Nearest transit	Tram 4 or 14 to Rembrandtplein; Waterlooplein metro about a five-minute walk

Hours listed by third-party directories vary, and some show a 16:00 opening on Wednesday and Thursday. The venue’s own agenda page is the reference to trust before a midweek visit, and Monday, Tuesday and Sunday openings depend on whether a private booking is scheduled.

What the place is actually like

This is a big room rather than an intimate bar: one main space with a 21-square-metre stage, a half-open upstairs bar with a clear view of the band, lockers for coats and bags, and a terrace that stays in use through winter as well as summer. The crowd is genuinely mixed. The café describes its own regulars as everyone from students to bankers and from day-trippers to lifelong Amsterdammers, which is what you would expect from a venue that hosts a student pub quiz one night and a company drinks reception the next.

The music policy is broad Dutch café repertoire: rock, pop, Nederlandstalige singalongs and cover sets built for a room that wants to sing along. Because the layout is designed for a standing crowd in front of a stage, weekend nights are loud and busy. If your plan is a quiet conversation, aim for an early midweek evening or the terrace in daylight instead.

The weekly programme

Friday and Saturday: bands then DJs

Live performances start at 21:30 on Fridays and 22:30 on Saturdays, and a DJ takes over straight after the band finishes and keeps going into the small hours. Doors open at 16:00 on both days and closing is 05:00, so a weekend visit can just as easily start with a beer on the terrace as end on the dance floor. The band line-up changes weekly and is published on the venue’s agenda, which is worth checking if you care which cover act you get.

Wednesday: Stëlz Wednesday

Midweek drinks promotions at this address have changed over the years, and older guides still refer to a vodka night. The current offer is Stëlz Wednesday, with Stëlz at €3 all evening. Doors are from 17:00 and the night runs to 03:00.

Thursday: student night

Thursday is the venue’s student night, with student prices on beer and shots. Beyond the weekly night, the café is a standing fixture for Amsterdam student associations, which book it midweek for pub quizzes, themed parties, constitution drinks and general meetings. Expect a young, association-heavy crowd rather than a tourist one.

Ajax matches and summer parties

Ajax fixtures are part of the venue’s own billing alongside bands, DJs and student parties, so match nights are shown in the café and draw a crowd that arrives well before kick-off. The other date to watch is the summer party series, promoted by the venue as its legendary zomerfeesten and announced on the agenda rather than on a fixed calendar date.

Best time to visit

• For live music, arrive by 21:00 on Friday or 22:00 on Saturday to get a spot with a view of the stage before the set starts.
• For cheap drinks, Wednesday is the €3 Stëlz night and Thursday has student pricing on beer and shots.
• For the terrace, come in the late afternoon on a Friday or Saturday, when doors open at 16:00 and the room is still calm enough to talk.
• For a football atmosphere, check the Ajax fixture list and treat the hour before kick-off as the arrival window.
• For a private party, Monday, Tuesday and Sunday are the days the venue keeps free for bookings.

Food, drinks and prices

There is no kitchen. The food offer is bittergarnituur, the fried Dutch snack platter built around bitterballen, plus pizza supplied by a pizza baker in the neighbourhood. Drinks lean on Dutch draught and Amsterdam speciaalbier, with the terrace beer-and-bitterbal combination promoted by the café itself as the warm-weather order.

The only price the venue publishes openly is the €3 Stëlz on Wednesdays. Student Thursday pricing and group packages are quoted directly rather than listed, so email [email protected] if a budget matters for your group.

Hiring it for a party or event

Private bookings are a core part of the business, not an afterthought. On weekdays and Sundays the whole café can be taken over, and the venue charges no room-rental fee but works with a minimum spend instead. In-house kit includes microphones, beamers, DJ equipment, beer-pong tables and the house light and sound system, which means a band only needs to bring instruments.

• Full capacity is around 300, and the space can be partitioned down for smaller groups.
• On Friday and Saturday the venue cannot be hired exclusively because of the regular programme, but the upstairs bar can be reserved for groups of 5 to 80, with its own entrance, bar, cloakroom and stage view.
• Groups on a weekend night get the band and DJ programme included, and smaller packages come with a house shot or glass of bubbles.
• The same team runs a smaller sister café, Café Leentje, with capacity for 200 and an upstairs bar suited to 40 or 50 people.
• Film and television shoots, presentations, meetings and weddings have all been hosted here, and are quoted case by case.

Enquiries for birthdays, graduation drinks, company drinks and sales go to the same address: [email protected], or 020 620 2173 by phone or WhatsApp.

How to get there

Thorbeckeplein is the short square running south off Rembrandtplein, so anything that gets you to Rembrandtplein gets you to the door.

• Tram: lines 4 and 14 stop at Rembrandtplein, a walk of under two minutes. Note that GVB reroutes lines during works on Linnaeusstraat, so check the live stop page if tram 14 is your plan.
• Metro: Waterlooplein station is about a five-minute walk east, served by the 51, 53 and 54.
• Night bus: night services at Rembrandtplein include the N85 and N87, and most GVB night lines pass through the square. Night buses run roughly every 30 to 60 minutes from about 00:30, at a higher fare than daytime tickets.
• Walking: the square is within 10 to 15 minutes on foot from Dam Square, Muntplein and the Flower Market.
• Bike: there is no bike parking at the venue itself, so use the racks around Rembrandtplein and keep off the tram tracks on the square.

Driving is the weakest option. On-street parking in the canal belt is among the most expensive in the Netherlands and the surrounding streets are one-way and cyclist-heavy; a P+R on the city edge plus metro or tram is cheaper and faster. Taxis queue on Rembrandtplein itself, which is useful at 05:00 when the trams are not running.

A short history

The café has occupied Thorbeckeplein 5 since the late 1980s. Its national breakthrough came in 1998 with the television programme De Heeren van Amstel LIVE!, in which established and emerging Dutch artists performed each other’s songs inside the café rather than in a studio, presented by Barry Hay and Manuëla Kemp. From 1999 the recordings moved out of the café, and the annual January closing concert at Ahoy grew into the Vrienden van Amstel LIVE concert series that still runs today. The room has also doubled as a film and television set for productions including Phileine Zegt Sorry and Mannenharten.

Frequently asked questions