Coffeeshops in Near Centraal

Most visits to Amsterdam start at Centraal, often with luggage and several hours before check-in. This page covers the shops you can reach on foot from the station, ordered by walking distance.

A few things worth knowing before your first stop. Bring your passport or national ID card — you need to be 18 and staff do ask. Most shops take cash and Dutch debit cards, but foreign credit cards are unreliable, so there's an argument for hitting an ATM in the station first. And the streets immediately south of Centraal are inside the public smoking ban: Damrak, Dam Square, Nieuwmarkt and De Wallen all carry a €100 on-the-spot fine for smoking outdoors. Whatever you buy in this area, you smoke where you bought it.

Distance buys a lot here. Five minutes gets you the Damrak strip, which is convenient and not much else. Ten minutes east along the Zeedijk toward Nieuwmarkt, or west over the Haarlemmerstraat, gets you shops with somewhere to sit, staff with time to talk, and a room that isn't half full of suitcases. If you have the hour, spend it walking.