Spijkerbar

Gert: I was here last Friday and it was heaving! Packed, steamy, you couldn’t move…
Steven: Oh my god. Yes, it still feels like it’s Gay Pride three times a week compared to what Spijkerbar used to be. It’s so not what we’d expected when we started.
So tell me, how or why does one buy a bar?
S: Tomas had an office job at the New York Stock Exchange here in Amsterdam, and he was a bit bored there. I also had an office job, crisis management and customer service, but the company went bankrupt. So I had nothing to do for a while, and I’d already occasionally worked behind the bar at Spijkerbar — they were always short-staffed.
So you knew a bit about bartending?
S: Yes. Tomas and I met 20 years ago when I ran an après-ski bar in Austria.
Oh? How was that?
S: Fun. Me behind the bar in my thong and a sombrero, spitting fire. Tomas came by one day with a busload of skiing Czechs. Anyway, in 2019 I was unemployed and wondering what I actually wanted to do. Paul, the previous owner of Spijkerbar, had already told me he wanted to quit, after I’d asked him why he never worked behind the bar himself. I thought the place was just loveless, smelly and sticky. He couldn’t have cared less anymore, I think. Then one day I heard he was looking to sell the place to someone from Rotterdam who wanted to turn it into a specialty whiskey store.
They wanted to turn De Spijker into a fancy liquor store? The horror!
S: Yes, and I thought, of course we cannot let that happen. We started a crowdfunding campaign. We got money from Tomas’s mother and from friends, from the owners of Club Church and other local bars. My hangout was the Queen’s Head on Zeedijk, which is always full of old queens who love a good crowdfunding campaign.
And that’s how you bought Spijkerbar?
S: Yes, on 1 March 2020, and then lockdown started.
Tomas: That was a bit of a setback…
S: Quite… Things turned out differently than we’d expected. But in the spirit of “Never waste a good crisis”, we first gave the place a makeover, renovated it, painted it, moved the TV screens 50cm. The kind of facelift that no one notices. And we threw a few lockdown parties, because we had to make a living, you know? After that, everything kind of exploded. It’s become a completely different bar — for the better. There’s so much more life in it today.
Does running Spijkerbar take more time than you expected?
S: A lot more. Tomas always says: you lied to me.
T: Because Steven presented it like, you sleep in, you do some gardening, you go
to the gym, then you head over to the bar at 3PM to get things started, and then you’re out again at 8PM. No way! I’ll be cleaning the place at 10AM and I won’t be home until after midnight.
But it’s worth it. The difference between sitting there with six other geezers on a Friday night, like it was eight or 10 years ago, and now barely being able to move through the crowd, is remarkable. How’s that possible?
S: Service. Attention. Back in the day there’d always be some bored bartender sitting on his ass, scrolling on his phone.
T: You had to wave to get his attention. Hello!!!
S: Can I have a drink??? We’re pretty old school when it comes to bartending — we want people to be greeted kindly when they come in and all that.
T: It works both ways because you can immediately see who or what’s coming in. If people don’t say hello, something’s not kosher.

Ah yes, the occasional pickpocket, like the guy who once offered me a shoulder massage and ran off with my gold chain.
T: Yes, those.
S: So what you want is the bar to be a cozy place where it’s nice to sit and chat, you know? You don’t want people to just run straight to the dark room, unload and go home.
Is there loads happening in the dark room? I’ve never noticed it being busy.
T: I mean, it comes and goes.
S: Sometimes there’s suddenly an orgy going on upstairs, and 20 minutes later the room is empty.
T: You can’t tell. Sometimes there’s a lot of sex on a Wednesday afternoon, and sometimes not.
S: But if you were here on a Friday night, it’s always so sociable that there’s very little sex happening. Which is nice, too.
Was your idea from the beginning to amp up the horny vibe?
S: Yes. We did write an initial business plan, which revolved around the words “art” and “sex”. Exhibitions and cruising. That was the idea. But the art idea kind of never materialized.
T: That’s also because everything here gets trashed. Visitors destroy everything that isn’t bolted to the wall. Everything disappears or is demolished.
S: And in the end, people don’t come for the art, they come because Spijkerbar is a kind of sexy, edgy extension of their living room.

How do you achieve that? Is the music you play more exciting than it used to be? Does it help if the staff is half-naked behind the bar?
S: First of all, it’s about the friendliness of the staff, and that you, as a guest, are simply seen and noticed by knowledgeable staff who have the skills to connect people. Gay guys often come alone, of course, as do tourists—you have to be able to connect with them, or even better, make sure they connect with each other. That’s the trick. Without any connection, people have one beer and they’re off again in 10 minutes. They may not be dissatisfied per se, but the idea is to offer them a bit more, and make them stay for three hours.
T: And drink multiple beers.
S: Few guys understand that skill. Especially not in bars and restaurants in Amsterdam, because they’re pretty much full anyway, regardless of the service, so the staff just throw in the towel. On Reguliersdwarsstraat (Amsterdam’s mainstream gay street) you’re surrounded by screaming bitches and you’ll wait 10 minutes for a beer. That’s just annoying.
But how do you find good staff?
S: It’s tough. We give a lot of people a chance. If we don’t immediately think someone is socially inept, we try it out, but even then, 80 percent of them are out. As a bartender, you have to be a bit of a showman.
T: Yeah, definitely, the bar is your stage, so to speak.
S: We’re in a basement, so our customers don’t come here for the beautiful view. And they’ve probably already been wanking on the internet for three hours at home. So they come to us for some fun company. You have to be able to provide that, you know?
Yes.
S: We’ve noticed the best bartenders are those who’ve worked as a steward for KLM. They’ve been thoroughly drilled. They get it.
T: Also, what you don’t want are regulars offering themselves as bartenders. They’ll say, ‘Oh, pouring beer, that sounds fun.’ But that’ll cost you double because they’ll drink just as much as usual, but they’ll do it on the wrong side of the bar, and you’ll have to pay them too. So we’re not going to do that.
Would you say your life has improved and become more fun since you’ve had the bar?
S: We’re having loads of fun. We run into all sorts of things. But it’s not something we’ll keep up for another 10 years, you know? Not in this way. I’m 46, Tomas is three years younger.
What effect does Spijkerbar have on your sex life?
S: You can write off sex.
T: Running a bar is killing all sex.

Oh no! Why is that?
S: You become a kind of mother superior of the gay community — everyone knows you. Any anonymity or excitement is kind of gone.
T: You know, when you’re standing in Vondelpark in the middle of the night with your pants down and people say, ‘Hi, Tomas, I was at Spijkerbar yesterday, it was fun.’ You don’t want that. So now, if we want to have sex, we have to leave the country. I mean, things happen sometimes, but no, generally speaking, the sex hasn’t improved.
S: We travel to be sluts.
I’m really surprised.
T: So am I!
S: But there’s no time for sex, you know. Take our Naked Tuesday, for example. Of course, everybody’s shagging and fucking and sucking and all that, which is really fun to witness, but you don’t have time to participate. Also, if you’ve got a candy store, you shouldn’t eat it all yourself.
T: Save the best candy for the guests.
S: I mean, sure, great if I suck everyone off, but then they’re ready and done and off in 15 minutes. So it’s policy not to do that. But we’re not complaining. We’re having a great time — it’s hilarious, it’s a scream, it’s hysterical. We’re happy to serve. But do I still go down the road to Club Church and position myself in the sling? No, I don’t do that so much anymore. There’ll always be someone who comes up to you because you’re Mister Spijkerbar and wants to talk business. It’s difficult to then say, ‘Sorry, I’m here to get fucked.’ So I’m, like, I’d rather go home and stick a dildo in.
I heard you guys got married recently?
S: We did! I got sick last year, I had a little cancer thingy, got radiation and the whole thing, so then we suddenly thought, OMG. I’ll die, maybe we should get married to arrange things properly. I didn’t die, but we did get married.
And you’re fine now?
S: All fine now, but my ass looks brand new from all the radiation. I look like a teenager down there, and it’s also really tight, which is less pleasant. But it looks super neat.
Oh, that’s why I’d heard that you had your ass bleached?
S: Yeah, I was joking with the photographer about that.
Do you know people who’ve had their asses bleached?
S: Not really. I don’t know why people would do that.
T: Maybe it’s for the kind of people who are afraid that others will think they didn’t clean properly?
I keep being intrigued by how De Spijker was a dead end for years, and it’s swarming now, and you turned that around in just a few years.
S: We know a bit about marketing and how to get the word out. And we’ve also kicked out a lot of people in the past five years, people who we thought: you’re not contributing anything, you’re a begger, you have bad breath. That kind of thing, done with it!

How do you kick people out elegantly?
S: I’m very good at that. Like, last week, there was someone who was always whining and bothering people. Then I was, like, why don’t you just go away for a bit, you know? Finito. Also, to protect those people from themselves. People who sit here getting drunk five times a week, you see them fade away. Those people need a push. Go find a hobby!
T: We also have to protect Spijkerbar.
S: It’s the danger of popularity — suddenly the gay guys we know bring three girlfriends, and the next time those three girlfriends bring three more girlfriends, and before you know it, the place is full of screaming girls talking selfies. We don’t want that. But we do have a lot of lesbian customers. They can’t go anywhere during the week when Café Saarein (Amsterdam’s oldest lesbian bar) is closed.
What do most people drink? Beer?
T: Beer.
S: But we serve tea, coffee and have really good wines. Unlike most bars.
What’s your personal favorite drink?
T: I’m a beer guy.
S: I’m a cum type of guy. (laughs) That’s my drink of choice. I just love the taste.
Tomas, do you ever miss your work at the Stock Exchange?
T: Not at all, but when I left, I said I never wanted to see an invoice again in my life. Big mistake. I’m doing more paperwork now than I did back then.
Well, somebody needs to do the dirty work, and I’m glad you do. Yours is a gift to Amsterdam.
T: Oh thanks. But don’t get us wrong.
S: We may be bitching, but we also love what we do.