Café Eik & Linde: Pool and Billiards in the Plantage, Amsterdam

The billiards table

This is a traditional café billiards table, not a pool table. It came along from the previous Eik en Linde, and the café makes a point of keeping it while billiards disappears from other bars. It gets a lot of use during the day. In the evening it is usually closed because the room gets too busy, so come before dinner if you want to play.

The house also mentions draughts, chess and Catan as ways to fill an afternoon.

The room

The café has a large ground-floor room, with the Plantage Middenlaan on one side and a view of the back garden on the other. The owners call it a living room for many, with a billiards table in the middle. It has held live music evenings and has its own audio broadcasts, called Eik on Air. Alongside drinks there are lunch and snacks, with price lists on the website.

History

The first Eik en Linde stood at the corner of Plantage Badlaan and Plantage Franschenlaan, on a spot now inside Artis. The building survives there as the wolf house, with a plaque on the outside wall. From 1834, a long run of advertisements in the Algemeen Dagblad invited people there for concerts. The café moved to the Plantage Middenlaan, passed through two other addresses, and landed at number 22 in 1967.

The name comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which the old couple Philemon and Baucis take in Zeus and Hermes and are turned into an oak and a linden tree.

Meeting room and groups

On the mezzanine is a meeting room overlooking the garden, for up to 15 people at a table or 20 in rows. It costs €350 a day or €250 for a part of a day or an evening, excluding drinks, and has a projector, screen and flipchart. It is not for parties. Groups can come for drinks in the café, and the house likes to know in advance.