I live in the Netherlands, a small country in Europe where Amsterdam is the capital. We have a lot of cows, cheese, windmills, tulips and legal drugs. To get all the stereotypical things out there.
I will write a series of posts about the food trends I have been noticing in the Netherlands.
Back-story: When I was doing my industrial design bachelor at Eindhoven I had a very cool teacher for a very fun course. It was called trend watching or something similar to that. The teacher taught us to create our own design methods and to observe trends by going to a lot of conferences or events. “Go out there! Observe and analyse!” I really admired her, because she is a good talker and she had created her own job at a industrial design company by just doing her stuff ‘trend watching’ and they created a new position for her. That’s really awesome: doing your stuff, people like it and they want to pay for it. Hopefully I can create that one day.
Back to the trends in the Netherlands… It will be mostly based on things I like, because that is more fun to write about. First trend is…
Coffee shops!
Finally I see them more in the Netherlands. Those cute, hip, trendy coffee shops which I first saw in China and South-Korea.
Did you know: In the Netherlands the word ‘coffee shop’ is also used for bars where you can legally buy soft drugs. So if you are talking about ‘coffee shops’ in the Netherlands you are usually talking about those places. But I will use the name ‘coffee shop’ for coffee & tea places, because most people OUTSIDE the Netherlands will understand.
There are franchise coffee shops like Coffee Company, Douwe Egberts Café, Bagel & Beans and Starbucks. There are much more individual cute coffee shops. A few which I have visited:
I still want to visit Round&Round in Rotterdam. Created by two senior industrial design classmates. They started with selling soft fluffy cake roles.
Hmm.. I have to say most coffee shops are not only selling beverages and sweets, but they also sell dinner or design products. Maybe only selling coffee or tea would not be enough to earn money? Or maybe it’s because Dutch people don’t go out with friends to only sit in a café. They also want to do some activity? Shopping.. eating..
Books & café
Another trend is cafés in book stores. When buying a book, maybe you want to relax with a cup of coffee and read a book. The Van Piere bookstore in Eindhoven has a nice coffee shop called ‘Coffeelovers’
Also IKEA, HEMA and the V&D, which are mainly product shops, have added food & drinks areas in their shops. Food & drinks just go with everything. Except when going to the bathroom…
Although..
What if there is a small-bite-buffet for when you have to wait for the bathroom? A very nice waiting room before entering the toilets with snacks of the restaurant or whatever place you are. When it is your turn for the toilet, you will be guided to the other room with the toilets. Because you don’t want to have the toilet odours in the waiting room.
What do you think of that idea?
