Homes near Fabel Friet, an Amsterdam chip shop whose TikTok-fuelled queues have become one of the city’s more unlikely tourist attractions, sell for less than comparable homes just streets away, according to a TU Delft study.
The research, reported by local broadcaster AT5, came out this week at the same time as the city council and the shop’s owners faced off in court over the queue and how to deal with public nuisance caused by it.
PhD researcher Rosa van der Drift compared the sale prices of 6,233 Amsterdam homes between 2015 and 2023, taking account of factors such as size and condition. Homes within 500 metres of the shop sold for 4.88% less on average, or about €41,000.
Within 70 metres, the gap widened to 11.4%. The study does not establish any correlation with causation.
Old licence
The court case was made by a group of residents against the city council, not the business. They argue the council did not properly weigh their interests when it granted Fabel Friet an operating licence, and want the licence withdrawn or its conditions tightened.
In 2024, a judge suspended a council rule limiting the queue to 10 people after Fabel Friet called it unworkable.
On Tuesday, one resident told the court there were people eating chips outside “every day, from 11 in the morning until 9 in the evening”, AT5 reported. The residents’ lawyer said a serious accident on the crowded bridge was only a matter of time.
The owners told the court their crowd managers keep the queue safe, the street is cleaned 4 times a day and crowds are down 23% since they opened other branches. For a while they hired a falcon 3 times a week to scare off the gulls, but stopped when residents began using it as evidence against them.
A representative of mayor Femke Halsema acknowledged that the old licence had not been effective enough, and said stricter conditions had been added to the current one about 6 months ago. “It is complicated,” the representative said, according to AT5. “You are so successful, is that not allowed?”
The judge urged both sides to find common ground, reminding the residents of the Dutch saying that a good neighbour is better than a distant friend. She will rule within 6 weeks, but only on the old licence, because objections to the current licence have yet to be decided.
