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"Perched on a sun‑trap corner beside the stately Prince’s Canal, this archetypal Amsterdam brown café epitomizes the Jordaan’s working‑class history and the Dutch virtue of gezelligheid: think wood‑panelled walls, ramshackle furniture, stained oil paintings, a jolly red‑and‑green striped canopy and candlelit tables where neighbours gossip and old‑time Amsterdammers tell stories. Less obvious to many visitors is that its glass is graced by the Amsterdamse krulletter, the curlicued script developed in the 1940s by Wim Visser; when the current proprietor took over in the 1980s he replaced a Gothic 1930s sign by commissioning veteran sign‑painter Leo Beukeboom, who drafted with a pounce wheel and painted the window freehand in a single afternoon—a hand‑crafted feature customers have admired ever since." - Mark Smith