The seats are set up and the tables get a quick cleaning. It is opening time at Café Schumich and 22-year-old Bruno is walking around as if he has been the boss for years. Yet he doubts: does he want this, and is it still feasible?
The café has been in the hands of the family since the early 70s: first of his great -grandoma, then his grandmother and now his mother. For Bruno, only child and only grandson, it seems obvious to continue that line. But does a brown pub like this still have a future?
That tension is central to the documentary last round, made by Esli and Allart. For half a year they followed the family in and around the cafe and recorded Bruno’s doubts. “But yes, what else are you going to do?” He says honestly.
Brown pub vs. hip eating tent
During her internship at AT5, the Esli noticed how many brown pubs in Amsterdam closed its doors. Nationally it concerns about two hundred cafés a year. “Very sin,” she says. “The solidarity is precisely there.” Through the organizer of the Day of the Brown Pub, she came together with Allart at Café Schumich. A case that has been run by women for generations, and perhaps soon by grandson Bruno.
But that is not easy. Outside the regular customers it often remains empty. In the summer, tourists provide some income, but in the winter it is survival. “In the past there were only pubs here,” says Oma Frea in the documentary, looking at the coffee shops in the street.
The text continues under the video.