Koert van Egmond threw open the doors of his bakery on Ferdinand Bolstraat for the very last time today. At the end of October, he made the decision: his bakery had to close due to rising energy prices and a lack of staff. Today regular customers from the area organized one more farewell drink: “They just deserve that!”
Venekamp is no stranger. The bakery has been in the same place for 125 years and supplies the entire neighborhood with, according to the neighbors, the best bread in town. “I don’t know where I’m going to get my bread from,” said regular customer Michael Harlaar five months ago when Venekamp announced the closure.
The baker barely got the staff around anymore. That is why he has been in the business seven days a week for the past few months. In addition, his energy bill increased by thousands of euros, “This was unbearable.” He looked for a successor, but there was no enthusiasm for that.
The champagne is being refilled, because more and more people are entering the store. “It really was the staff and the atmosphere that make the store so special,” says a regular customer who lives around the corner. A man who buys his loaves of bread for the last time says he used to go there as a student: “I lived here in the Pijp and you would come to get a currant bun at half past five when you were out.”
“My grandmother from 1895 already came here, my mother from 1928 also came to Venekamp. And now me. I don’t even live in Amsterdam anymore, but I still come to get my bread. It’s suddenly very strange now.” says a woman for whom Venekamp was always in the family.
Get out of the way
Koert lives above the business, and that will remain. But he leaves for a bakery in Haarlem to work: “I don’t want to be around here anymore. Then they come to get their product from the neighbors when I work there, it just doesn’t work that way.” The customers give Koert a hug or a handshake, and walk out the door with their last groceries.