The village pub is a household name in itself. Together with the snack bar it is perhaps indispensable for many people in every village and every neighborhood. But this facility is not within reach for everyone as you might expect.
Where the average Assenaar finds a cafe within a radius of more than one and a half kilometers, residents of Westerveld have to make an average of almost eight kilometers for a cafe visit. Meppel has a high ‘pub density’ within five kilometers within five kilometers, but thirsty inhabitants of the Wolden have a lot less choice. They have to do it with one cafe in the same jet. All this is evident from figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
It will be no surprise that the density in numbers of cafes and cafeterias are higher in the most urbanized municipalities of Drenthe. And that cafégoers in ‘rural municipalities’ are more quickly dependent on the local village pub (s).
The same comparison can be made with regard to cafeterias. With an average distance of less than a kilometer to a snack bar, the croquettes in Assen and Meppel are still warm when returning home. For comparison: the average resident of AA and Hunze takes more than two kilometers to reach the snack bar.
At the same time, the competition in the Snackbars category, where the CBS is also lunchrooms and ice cream parlors, is a lot bigger in urban municipalities. In Assen, Hoogeveen and Emmen, a resident within 5 kilometers from the house will find more than twenty of these types of food and snack facilities.
On average, a Dutch snack bar is within a kilometer from the home address. In Limburg, Noord-Brabant and the four largest cities, a snack bar within a kilometer distance is in almost all municipalities.
An ice cream or fries is also available within a kilometer on most Wadden Islands. In the Northern Netherlands and the Noordoostpolder, the distances to a cafeteria are a bit longer.