The claim
On the corner where the Brouwersgracht meets the Prinsengracht, this 1642 house is one of the Jordaan's most photographed brown cafés. Delft tiles, a potbelly stove and a cellar said to hold the entrance of a tunnel to a hidden Catholic church give it character; the homemade apple pie drew Bill Clinton in 2011.
What the records show
The Dutch national monuments register describes Prinsengracht 2 as a corner house with stepped gables to the street and the side, decorated with heavy arched blocks, and dates it 1641 — a year off the 1642 the cafe gives, and near enough to hold the claim up. Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser, which has owned the house since 1918 and is the second publisher this row needed, gives the same year: built in 1641 as a shop with a dwelling above, its matching stepped gables to two sides a rare thing on the canals, with an eighteenth-century pottery shop trading here and the cafe De Blauwe Druif arriving at the end of the nineteenth century. Both accounts make the original use trade and living rather than drinking. The cafe's own history has it selling beer and wine as a shop for many years before it was first fully licensed in 1896, as De Blauwe Druif, taking its present name in 1956. The story that an undertaker sold drink here from about 1600 cannot stand: the corner plot was still empty until 1641. The name remembers the clandestine Catholic church De Posthoorn, which stood in this block until 1860. So the walls are of the claimed age and the counter trade is recorded two and a half centuries later.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1642 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1641 | Present building | Rijksmonument 718, which dates the corner house with its stepped gables to 1641; the cafe dates itself 1642 |
| 1896 | First record of a drinking house here | Rijksmonumentenregister |
What to look for inside
- Built in 1641, a year before the date the cafe gives itself
- Owned by Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser since 1918
- Legendary tunnel to a clandestine Catholic church
- Fully licensed as a pub in 1896
- Famous apple pie, praised by Bill Clinton
Visiting
Café 't Papeneiland is in Amsterdam, Netherlands, at Prinsengracht 2, 1015 DV Amsterdam. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- www.papeneiland.nl/History.html
- www.papeneiland.nl/Geschiedenis.html
- monumentenregister.cultureelerfgoed.nl/monumenten/718
- www.hendrickdekeyser.nl/de-huizen/prinsengracht-2
- api.data.amsterdam.nl/v1/horeca/exploitatievergunning/?adres%5Blike%5D=Prinsengracht%202*&_format=json
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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