Is this the most unlucky restaurant opening ever?
Due to the coronavirus crisis, many hospitality businesses have of course been hit pretty hard. Some more than others; that makes sense too. But among all those restaurants, bars and cafés, there’s one that, as far as we’re concerned, has really had all the bad luck. Every setback: yep, this one gets it. Which restaurant is the Dutch unlucky one? No Rules in Amsterdam.
No Rules, by former three-Michelin-star chef Jacob Jan Boerma and hospitality entrepreneurs Michel Pais and Bram van Es, was supposed to become the new hotspot on the busy Marie Heinekenplein. A new-style pizzeria. Now, I’m absolutely not superstitious, but I genuinely believe there’s a curse on this square. I can no longer count on two hands how many businesses have been located there over the past ten years—things failed there so often—and especially in the spot where No Rules is now.
A German schnitzel restaurant was located there. A pizzeria. A salsa dance school slash neighborhood café. De Kleine Valk, which No Rules took over. Mark my words: this place is cursed.
So what exactly went wrong?
Let me start by saying that the real official opening hasn’t even taken place yet: they haven’t had the chance. They wanted to open… And then coronavirus happened. More businesses have been affected by that, such as By Cas in Breda—they were allowed to stay open for two whole hours until Rutte shut down the hospitality industry. No Rules didn’t even get two hours to try before corona; they were supposed to open the following week.
They weren’t entitled to the NOW scheme, which the government set up for the hospitality industry. That only applies to businesses that were open before January 2020. So, zero support. The consequence: unfortunately, most of the staff had to be laid off.
But then!
Fi-nal-ly, the hospitality industry was allowed to reopen. PARTY! Well, not at No Rules. They’re closed ‘preventively’ again until at least August 6, after six people reported having contracted coronavirus.
And well… That can of course happen. You can follow all the measures laid out by the RIVM, but it can still happen. Totally Kaa Uu Tee, especially when your business is subsequently mentioned in the media (along with two other Amsterdam businesses) in headlines such as: ‘Three Amsterdam businesses must close because of coronavirus infections.’
‘Must’ close?
To use Donald Trump’s words: FAKE NEWS. The infections were in the bar area, so No Rules decided to close that bar. They decided to do it themselves, okay: it wasn’t imposed on them. But the rest was open—even though the media says otherwise. In any case, I really don’t think it’s acceptable for these three businesses to be mentioned like this in news reports. The hospitality industry has already taken truly enormous blows; do you really want to encourage people to avoid a business because coronavirus was detected there? That could literally have happened anywhere.
And now they’ve gone fully closed after all—voluntarily. Hopefully they’ll reopen on Friday, August 7. And honestly, I wish them gigantic, packed (corona-proof, of course) days. The pizzas look amazing and I’m going to test them myself soon. Maybe the headlines could mention that too? ‘No Rules couldn’t do anything about coronavirus infections and is mainly known for its good food.’ A little show of support like that would be nice.
Image: No Rules Amsterdam
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