Barney's Coffeeshop

Barney's began as a breakfast café that happened to sell weed, and turned into the opposite. In the late nineties the owner reworked it into a full coffeeshop that also served food, brought in more connoisseur strains, and entered the High Times Cannabis Cup — the awards it won there are still the main thing the name is known for. The shop occupies a 500-year-old building on Haarlemmerstraat and has been renovated more than once since.

It opens at 7am, and the breakfast crowd is a genuine feature rather than a quirk. Expect it busy and expect a younger, largely international room — this is a destination shop, not a quiet local. Table service, and staff who get consistently good notices for handling volume without losing patience.