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salt? vinegar? lawsuit?
The crime scene is littered with gulls, squashed potato, and parmesan.
The latest civic disaster in a usually easy-breezy Amsterdam has begun over cones of chips, and locals are desperately trying to drive away tourists like fruit flies from a bowl of strawberries.
At the heart of ground zero is Fabel Friet, a little takeaway on Runstraat serving up portions of Britain’s favourite food smothered in pretentious toppings like truffle mayonnaise. Their butchering of the humble chip isn’t why they’re currently embroiled in a legal shitstorm, though.
TikTok naturally lapped up the demure aesthetic and word of mouth rapidly travelled about the shop. Now, seven days a week, a queue stretches out of the premises, along the narrow street, and across a bridge on the Keizersgracht full of hangry punters summoned by the algorithm.
@theviplist The real tea on Fabel Friet, you’re welcome. #fries #amsterdam #viral #review #fabelfriet
Those who paid a pretty penny to have these streets on their doorstep aren’t so thrilled about the town’s latest culinary addition. In fact, 19 residents have taken Amsterdam’s city council to court over Fabel Friet’s license, complaining about everything from noise pollution and greasy litter to an invasion of gulls and rats.
One plaintiff described the situation as a ‘kind of war’, which sounds very Karen until you imagine opening your front door every day to crowds of people filming chips. Hearing from an estate agent that your property has dropped £40k in value because of hysteria surrounding a root vegetable would, I’d imagine, also make a gull vastly more kickable.
The shop isn’t thrilled about being embroiled in a feud between civs and council, either. The owners say they’ve employed new cleaners, opened four additional locations to relieve the pressure, and watched visitor numbers at Runstraat drop 23% since August last year. The lawyer defence is a simple one: they intend to sell chips, and sell chips they do.
Establishments going from quaint to heaving overnight thanks to the internet isn’t a new phenomenon. Remember that Scottish town being overrun by Harry Potter buffs digging their elbows in and parking on every blade of grass to see the Hogwarts Express? Imagine being the poor bastards (or more likely extremely well-off bastards) living on Paddington Bear’s street. The blinds are shuttered all December.
Word of mouth is a powerful thing, but TikTok has a talent for supercharging interest – particularly when it comes to food spots. Spudman sold jacket potatoes from the same spot in Tamworth for years before the platform suddenly made him famous. Now he has people queueing for hours and travelling from distant regions just to taste some taters and immerse themselves in the fanfare.
The new term coined to describe hordes of customers being drawn to physical spaces never designed for them is ‘viral urbanism’. Overtourism has been a thing for as long as people have been squabbling to get their towels on sunbeds, but the algorithm has changed the speed and scale of the whole thing, meaning any one delicatessen, café, or coffee place is one viral video away from potentially hitting the jackpot.
The weird thing is, despite all the anger involved, nobody is really doing anything wrong. The residents are rightly sick of mushy foot traffic, the business didn’t exactly invent TikTok, and Amsterdam won’t be desperate to chalk off the lucrative tourism boon. TikTok also doesn’t concern itself with whether a road is too narrow for the population of a small country. It just wants your eyes, and that’s – annoyingly – a very valid argument in situations like these.
Cities were once shaped by town planners, businesses, and the people who bought up the property. Today, though, the For You page has arguably the biggest say on whether or not you’ll be living above a warehouse filled with vegetable oil.
