About 5:00 we checked into the hotel and saw a brochure for a local comedy club. I decided that was just what I needed after the long day. The brochure said to come before 6:00 for tickets and get a discount on the price. So we hurried there and asked for tickets for that night’s performance. Unhappily, they were sold out. I pleaded that we had been traveling all day and really needed a break. They offered to sell us tickets for the next night. We asked what else there was to do that was special. They said that there was a place called the Supper Club. It was dinner with entertainment. We were tired and it sounded great so we asked them to call and make reservations which they did. We got the address and decided to walk about and see downtown Amsterdam while we looked for the place which didn’t open until 8:00pm.
We found a coffee shop that sold marijuana cigarettes so we stopped in there and had no idea how or what to do. They had a selection of single cigarettes. You could smoke there so we got one and a soda and sat there very embarrassed and partook. Feeling really great, we then wandered the streets looking for the Supper club.
Jonge Roelensteeg 21
1012 PL Amsterdam, Netherlands
+31 20 3446400
Our map was confusing and it took us awhile to find the gold door with no sign out front and went in right at 8:00pm. The doorman checked our reservation. We told them we had made the reservation through the comedy club. They perked up and said, oh, you are with the comedy club. We didn’t know if they understood our English or if they couldn’t speak English themselves very well, so we decided to go with the flow. We were ushered downstairs into greeting rooms and a waiter asked us if we wanted a drink. Each room had benches around with enough room for about 12 people. It was dark and had a fluorescent glow. People slowly came in and we chatted, but most people were speaking another language. After about a half hour, another person came in and invited to seat us.
We went up some stairs into a large room, like a big barn. Who knew there was so much room from the outside of the building, which looked like several flats crammed in a row on this narrow cobbled street.
The room was open with a stage of sorts in the front. It was two stories tall. The second story, where we were taken up narrow stairs, was like a balcony overlooking the main floor. There were no chairs, just white mattresses. Little tables tall enough to fit over the mattresses if you were lying down in it, were next to them. They were arranged in intimate positions separated slightly from the couple next to you. We were in the back next to a larger area for party of six. The waiter who escorted us made a point of telling us we were next to the comedy club. He said the owner was here to be interviewed for a TV show.
The waiter asked for our drink orders and left. We were awed by the atmosphere of the club, especially in our altered state. The room was darkened and surreal. The “stage” was really the kitchen where chefs were preparing our dinner. We were too far away to really see what was going on, but we could watch the plating of each dish on a large butcher block. Above the kitchen was a huge movie screen. During the whole evening the movies were of underwater scenes, beaches, ocean waves, and other soothing slow artistic moving pictures. It was like movie art, something we had never seen before. Music was playing by a disc jockey which was rhythmic and pulsing and noncommittal, more like background sounds.
Just before our first course, the comedy club party arrived. We later learned that it was the owner and his business partner and wife, the two main stars of the club, and a black couple from New York with a bevy of camera equipment. They told us that the black couple with the cameras were interviewing them for a piece on Americans abroad for Channel 7 in New York. Their business was doing such interviews around the world and selling them to TV as special interest pieces that could be inserted into nightly news as needed. They loved their job, especially since their children were now grown and away at college. We had the ages of our children in common so we struck up an enjoyable conversation with them in between their business of interviewing the comedy club group. We soon became involved in the whole group conversation and party.
The couple on the other side of our mattresses was from London. They said they often came for the weekend to Amsterdam. It was a short, inexpensive boat ride for them and a very popular weekend destination for Londoners. However, we got caught up in the comedy club discussions.
The Supper Club came through with supper. Each course was brought to us by our waiter up the narrow stairs. They were delicious. About every hour something new would be brought. In the mean time, you could lounge on the mattresses, talk to your neighbors, have a massage by one of the many masseuses wandering the room, or watch the cooks, moving art, disc jockey, or performance art on the main floor. Once two women came out, one in a white knit dress. They began dancing while one pulled on the end of the bulky yarn and begun to unravel the dress. It was very exciting to watch the disrobing of this beautiful girl. She had a skimpy bikini on underneath, in case you were wondering. We thought, since it was Amsterdam, that she probably would be naked, but no such luck.
After the dessert, about 12:30am, the comedy club group began to depart. They said that the nightclubs were just now opening up and they were going to take the couple interviewing them along and would we like to join them. Of course we would. It was way past our bedtime, we were exhausted, but we knew we would never have such an opportunity again to be invited to a nightclub with such distinguished and local people, and what the heck. We would never have thought to go to a nightclub at all or which one to go to anyway.
We walked there through the crowded cobbled streets. Bicycles were parked everywhere. They told us we should go to a certain bicycle shop and go on a ride to see the sights, and then rent bicycles for the weekend to get around. But you had to be sure they were old beat up bikes, because anything new would be stolen. In fact, as you entered the center of town, there were banners announcing that you should be careful of your valuables because of pick pockets. How clever. As soon as you saw the sign, you would touch your wallet to be sure it was safe, tipping off anyone as to where your valuables were.
We finally came to the club, all lit up with neon and entered. It was a dark, cavernous two story building once again, but with no balcony. There was just a towering stage with a disc jockey atop, playing very loud rhythmic music. The floor below was crowded with young people gyrating to the music, dressed in the latest fashion, smoking or drinking. Our hosts paid the entrance fees, bought us drinks and offered us a reefer, off to the side. We partook to show we were not stuffed shirts and proceeded to dance. David did his wiggly disco and I got energized and did my side skipping and generally danced like I did when I was a bachelorette in Cleveland. A young girl took us aside so we could hear since the music was so loud, and asked us what we were on. Our host said she probably thought we were on cocaine or ecstasy or something, not just two old farts reliving the sixties.
Around 2:00am, our hosts helped us get a cab to our hotel. We spent the next day on a bicycle tour which was wonderful and then rented our bikes for the rest of our stay. That night we went to the comedy club finally.
We were seated in very good seats. The show was really funny. At the intermission, the owner and one of the stars came over to talk to us and ask us how we liked it and how our day was, as if we were old friends. We wondered what the people next to us thought. Why would two old Americans warrant the owner and the star to come talk to them like they knew us well! It was a real surprise and flattered us immensely.
We got the contact information for the TV interviewers who we really liked, and tried to contact them once, but they were probably in Portugal or someplace like that once again interviewing Americans living abroad. We will always remember Amsterdam and the Supper Club.
There are now Supper Clubs in Amsterdam, San Francisco, London, Singapore, and Istanbul. The concept has obviously caught on. And it is surprisingly inexpensive for the. Entertainment changes all the time as well as the menu, but the beds, pillows and surreal atmosphere are all there to make a unique dining experience.
10/10/09
Frommer's Amsterdam Day by Day (Frommer's Day by Day - Pocket)Amsterdam Sights 2011: a travel guide to the top 50 attractions in Amsterdam, Netherlands (Mobi Sights)
Lonely Planet Amsterdam (City Travel Guide)
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