Trippist gets quite a few visitors who were once exchange students in Amsterdam. And if you did ever study in Amsterdam, there's a small chance you lived on Bickerseiland, in the student housing. And if you lived there, then you'll know this cafe very well:

The blauwhooft is famous for being THE neighborhood café for residents in and around Prinseneiland. This area includes the other two islands, Bickers and Royale. It is a working class café, or perhaps another way to describe it, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. And if they don't know you, that's ok too!

Just because its working class doesn't mean the menu doesn't have decent options; the sandwiches at the blauwhooft are nothing to shake a stick at. Even run of the mill caprese or goat cheese sandwiches are made with a little extra love that makes them taste just right.

A year or so ago, after taking new students around their new temporary home on Bickerseiland, I joined the local neighborhood cop for a cup of coffee at the Blauwhooft. He told me tales of the neighborhood and how it had changed. He told me who lived where and what famous American actor tried to buy which house but then changed his mind. Throughout the conversation, neighborhoods would wander in out of the rain, greet him, and then take a seat next to us. - That's how I always think of the blauwhooft. A neighborhood café- a dying breed.