Susie’s Saloon

Susie’s Saloon is a smoker-friendly canal-side pub at Oudezijds Voorburgwal 254 in Amsterdam’s Red Light District, open daily from 10:00 to 01:00 (until 03:00 on Friday and Saturday), with two happy hours a day, a full English breakfast, pool, darts, pinball and five screens showing live sport. It has traded for more than 25 years and is roughly a 10-minute walk from Amsterdam Centraal.

Susie’s Saloon at a glance

Detail	Information
Address	Oudezijds Voorburgwal 254, 1012 GK Amsterdam
Neighbourhood	De Wallen (Red Light District), Centrum
Phone	+31 20 622 8912
Opening hours	Sunday–Thursday 10:00–01:00; Friday–Saturday 10:00–03:00
Happy hours	15:30–18:00 and 22:30–00:00, every day
Typical pint price	From about €3.50; roughly €3 during happy hour
Kitchen	Breakfast, burgers, subs and sandwiches until 15:00; toasties all day
Nearest stop	Dam (trams 4, 14, 24), about a 3-minute walk

Hours and prices change. Call ahead or check the pub’s own channels before planning a visit around breakfast or a specific match.

What Susie’s Saloon actually is

Susie’s Saloon is a long-running neighbourhood-style bar on the edge of De Wallen, Amsterdam’s Red Light District. It bills itself as a well-established bar with more than 25 years of experience in service and cold beer, and the format matches that claim: draught Heineken and Guinness, pub food, screens for live sport, and a large canal-side terrace facing the Oudezijds Voorburgwal.

The name suggests a Wild West theme, and the exterior sign shows a cowgirl in a Stetson. Inside, the decoration leans closer to a lodge than a saloon, with dreamcatchers, totems and old photographs of Native American chiefs on the walls and football shirts and scarves pinned to the ceiling. The soundtrack tends toward hard rock. If you are looking for a design-led cocktail bar, this is not it; if you want a loud, unpretentious pub with cheap beer and a canal view, it fits.

Drinks, happy hour and prices

Beer is the main draw, and the pricing is the reason many visitors return. Susie’s runs two happy hours every day rather than one, which is unusual in central Amsterdam and effectively gives you a discounted window in both the late afternoon and the late evening.

• Afternoon happy hour: 15:30 to 18:00, daily.
• Late happy hour: 22:30 to 00:00, daily.
• Pint pricing: listings put a standard pint from around €3.50, with happy-hour beer reported near €3.00 and Heineken listed around €5.00 outside the discount window.
• On draught: Heineken and Guinness are the mainstays.

Prices quoted by third-party listings drift over time and vary by glass size, so treat these as a guide rather than a menu. The practical takeaway is that Susie’s sits at the cheaper end of Centrum bar pricing, especially during the two discount windows.

Food: breakfast is the signature

The kitchen’s best-known item is the full English breakfast, which listings have priced around €12.50 including coffee, tea or juice. Alongside it you will find burgers, subs and sandwiches. One important timing detail that trips up visitors: the hot kitchen menu, including breakfast, has been served until 15:00, while toasties (tostis) remain available all day.

That makes Susie’s a genuine morning option rather than an evening dining choice. If you arrive at 21:00 expecting a full meal, plan on a toastie and a pint instead.

Sport, games and the smoking room

Susie’s is set up as a sports pub first. It has been described as running five televisions connected to multiple satellite and digital receivers, capable of showing up to three Premier League or Champions League matches simultaneously, with a following among rugby and horse racing fans as well.

• Games: pool table, darts and pinball.
• Music: a jukebox is listed by the venue, though long-time reviewers have reported it out of service at times.
• Smoking: a separate smoking room at the back, which is uncommon under current Dutch rules and is one of the pub’s defining features.
• Terrace: a large canal-side terrace directly on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal.

The smoking room refers to tobacco. Dutch law separates that from cannabis, which is sold in licensed coffeeshops rather than bars, so do not assume a bar’s smoking room permits it.

Best time to visit

The right arrival time depends entirely on what you want out of the visit, because the kitchen, the discounts and the crowd all peak at different points in the day.

• Before 15:00: the only window for the full English breakfast and the hot kitchen menu.
• Early afternoon: the quietest stretch and the easiest time to claim a terrace table on the canal.
• 15:30 to 18:00: the first happy hour, and the point at which the after-work crowd begins arriving.
• Match times: plan around fixtures if you want a seat with a view of a screen, particularly for Premier League, Champions League and Six Nations weekends.
• 22:30 to 00:00: the second happy hour, useful if you are pacing a late night.
• Friday and Saturday: the only nights the bar runs to 03:00.

Seasonally, the terrace makes late spring through early autumn the strongest period, while the interior suits the wet, dark months that dominate the Amsterdam calendar. Expect the Centrum location to be busiest from June to August and during major football tournaments, and expect the whole surrounding district to be extremely crowded on King’s Day, 27 April.

How to get there

Susie’s Saloon sits at Oudezijds Voorburgwal 254, on the canal of the same name in De Wallen. The location is central enough that walking is usually the fastest option from anywhere in the old centre.

• On foot from Amsterdam Centraal: roughly 10 minutes south through the Damrak area and into the Oudezijds Voorburgwal canal street.
• By tram: trams 4, 14 and 24 stop at Dam, around 226 metres away, a walk of about three minutes.
• By bike: straightforward, but use a proper lock and a designated rack, as bike theft and clamping are both common in Centrum.
• By car: not advisable. Centrum on-street parking is among the most expensive in the Netherlands and the surrounding canal streets are largely restricted.

If you are navigating by canal rather than street name, the bar faces the water on Oudezijds Voorburgwal, the first main canal east of Damrak.

Who it suits, and who it does not

Susie’s works well for sports fans, groups looking for an affordable base near Centraal, smokers who want an indoor option, and anyone after a large cooked breakfast in the middle of the Red Light District. Reviewers consistently describe it as an easy place to meet people, and it has been reported as tolerant of dogs.

It is a weaker choice for quiet conversation, craft beer depth, a late dinner, or anyone who wants distance from the noise and stag-party traffic of De Wallen. On Tripadvisor it holds a rating of about 4.1 from more than 220 reviews, which is solidly positive for a budget pub but not a fine-dining endorsement.

Frequently asked questions