Sunday 5 April; the day Amsterdam’s hospitality industry was going to collectively go under
Sunday 5 April was THE day. The first warm, sunny Sunday of the year, and therefore the day when Amsterdam’s hospitality staff would completely underestimate the crowds and every establishment with a terrace would collectively go under. How sad I was yesterday that we all had to miss that first beautiful day on the terrace. And this is why:
The butterflies
It always starts as soon as you get up. The butterflies. You’ve been keeping an eye on the weather forecast; you know it’s going to be a beautiful day. In one smooth movement, you leap out of bed, put on your shorts for the first time that year and cycle to work in the sunshine, filled with nervous excitement: “I can do this. I’m ready,” runs through your head the whole way.
500 cappuccinos in 5 minutes
But things soon go wrong. Because you’re not the only one who got up early. By the time you’ve put the first terrace chair on the sunny terrace, there are already people there. It’s 10:01 in the morning, your doors have just opened, and 15 people on your terrace all want to wake up with complicated cappuccinos, lattes and flat whites. And off you go: after 5 minutes, you’re already playing catch-up.
Going under
Your colleague arrives at 11:00, but that’s actually already too late. All of Amsterdam is heading out today, and you and your colleague—oh wait, she still had to be trained?!—can’t do much about it. Everything goes wrong. The kitchen can’t handle all the lunch tickets: swearing and shouting in the kitchen are the result. At 12:00, the coffees are exchanged for craft beers, Bloody Marys and Aperol spritzes. The many beers you pour are dying on the bar because your colleague is still taking orders on the terrace; the ice machine can’t keep up; there aren’t enough lemons; you’ve restocked the fridge three times by 14:00, and if one more guest orders a fresh orange juice, you’ll consider spitting in their glass. As if you have time to squeeze juice now! Meanwhile, you’re trying to reach all your colleagues; with the phone wedged between your ear and shoulder, you pour your beers. Nobody answers, so you try the group chat: “someone needs to come NOW! We’re going under!”
The sun-hungry guests
And then there are the guests. On the first sunny terrace day, Amsterdam’s hospitality customers are, to put it mildly, well… a little impatient. The feeling of “we’re allowed out again” is palpable throughout the city, and if you’ve already managed to secure a spot in the sun, you naturally want a cold beer too. And quickly! After all, it’s only 5 April, so the sun will be gone again in no time. The sun is sacred and must therefore be followed. Are you sitting in the shade of a lamppost but see a spot becoming available? Quick! Move! Leaving your poor colleague, who is working on the terrace for the first time, completely unsure of what they’re doing anymore. Very dutifully, you tell your terrace guests that they should apply sunscreen “because the sun is deceptively strong today,” but of course you don’t have time for that yourself, so by the end of the day you look like a stressed-out tomato.
War zone
You get through this first terrace day minute by minute. By the end, you’re running on fumes. When, at 18:00, the colleague taking over your shift bounces in fresh as a daisy and then asks whether you couldn’t have tidied everything up properly, while you feel as though you’ve just come out of a war zone, you’ve had absolutely enough. Wrecked. Your feet hurt. Your head is sunburned. You’re thirsty. The only thing that got you through the day was the thought of your first beer in the sun. But alas. It’s only 5 April; the sun is gone again.
We all had to miss it yesterday. Man, how I longed yesterday for my first day of going under.
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