Viral Amsterdam fry shop's licence fight hits tourism bottom line

Amsterdam’s tourism economy, which the city council says sustains roughly 70,000 jobs, is facing an unusual stress test in a courtroom where the future of one of its most profitable viral businesses is now being decided. Fabel Friet, a chip shop on the Runstraat whose parmesan and truffle mayonnaise fries have made it a TikTok phenomenon, is fighting for its licence after nineteen neighbours formally protested against the city’s decision to permit it in one of the capital’s most exclusive neighbourhoods.

The commercial stakes are considerable for a business built almost entirely on visitor footfall. On busy days, the court was told last week, the queue stretches across a bridge on the Keizersgracht, one of Amsterdam’s most famous canals, and the narrow street is crowded with waiting customers seven days a week. That flow of customers is precisely what the owners, Abel Klatser and Floris Feilzer, have monetised, and precisely what opponents say has degraded the surrounding residential and retail environment.

In a packed courtroom on Tuesday morning, a lawyer for Amsterdam city council acknowledged that the mayor, Femke Halsema, can refuse a licence to operate if a business negatively affects the residential and living environment. While the chip shop sticks to its licence obligations to manage the queue and clear litter, she said, “it has been going on for a long time, the impact remains severe, and you have to ask: how long can we tolerate this?” For the current licence, she said, the city would be guided by the court’s ruling, due on 12 November.

The owners have mounted a defence that mixes operational investment with an appeal to fairness. They told the court they employ a cleaning service seven days a week, four times a day, and that year-on-year visitor numbers fell by 23% this August after they opened four new locations, suggesting demand is dispersing across their expanding footprint. Their lawyer, Gertjan Teeuwen, argued that nuisance is not universal. “A few neighbours have experienced nuisance, but other people enjoy eating chips,” he said. “It can be busy, but there are peaks and troughs.” In a public statement, Klatser and Feilzer said they felt unfairly attacked while doing their best to be good neighbours. “Fabel Friet is our child, and we have put our heart and soul into it,” they said. “It is painful if people talk about our business negatively.”

For the neighbours, led by plaintiff Niek van der Heijden, the grievance is partly economic in character: a small premises exporting its operating costs onto the street. “What we call the ‘TikTok queue’ for Fabel Friet causes the most nuisance,” he said. “The business takes place on the street: waiting to order, waiting to be served, eating. We want Fabel to go to a place where there is enough room to have clients inside.” Thomas van Leeuwen, who lives nearby, put it more bluntly. “We are in a kind of war where a very unwelcome chip shop has polluted the whole area,” he said, citing filth on doorsteps, mayonnaise staining the stone, herring gulls that have moved in as residents, and a rat infestation.

The case also raises questions about who captures the value of public space. Lisa-Bobbie Kamp, a lawyer for the neighbours, argued that the issue is one of appropriation. “The tiny streets might be charming, but actually the space is not designed for so many people,” she said. “This is a question of taking space, who owns the place and whether you can just use public space.” Marije Peute, a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam who has studied “viral urbanism” in the neighbourhood, said older retail spaces have lost their local clients because they no longer want to go there, and that the municipality should think hard about how it acts, because this is about public space. Further background on the case is available at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/04/viral-amsterdam-chip-shop-court-fabel-friet.

By contrast, the wider economic picture is not one-sided. Rogier Havelaar, a councillor from the Christian Democratic Appeal party, said Fabel Friet should probably be offered a “flagship store” licence in a more suitable location, but cautioned against dismissing tourism’s contribution. “Amsterdam would never have as many museums, restaurants, going-out spots and theatres if they were only for the residents,” he said. “And tourism provides 70,000 jobs. Amsterdam would have a gigantic financial problem if tourism went away.”

A verdict on 12 November will determine whether the business keeps its location, and with it the customer flows on which the venture was built.