Amsterdam court upholds licence for TikTok-famous chip shop Fabel Friet

An Amsterdam court has upheld the licence of Fabel Friet, the chip shop in the Runstraat whose TikTok-drawn queues led neighbours to sue for its closure. The judge ruled that residents had failed to show that the neighbourhood's problems were solely or mainly caused by the shop's customers.

Fabel Friet was launched in 2020 by Abel Klatzer and Floris Feilzer. Videos of its fries — topped with Parmesan cheese and truffle mayonnaise — were widely shared on TikTok, tourists followed, and the queues outside stretched back to the canal bridge. The founders have since opened four more branches in the city centre; the Runstraat outlet remains the flagship.

Residents asked the court to overturn the licence extension the city council granted in 2024. They argued that the shop added to overcrowding in the Negen Straatjes district and attracted seagulls, which ripped open rubbish bags outside and spilled the contents over the street. 'The number of places where they can sit and eat their chips without causing a nuisance is quite limited,' resident Niek van der Heijden told an earlier hearing.

The court was not persuaded. 'Other catering outlets in the neighbourhood also attract large numbers of visitors and have queues,' the judges said, concluding that the residents had not demonstrated that the problems were solely or primarily caused by Fabel Friet's customers and that the licence had been granted correctly. The ruling concerns the 2024 extension; the court was not asked to rule on the licence issued this year.

The owners, meanwhile, had spent the dispute paying for their own virality. They set up a special queueing system to keep order in the street, hired extra security and put up signs aimed at the tourists outside the shop. At one stage they employed a falconer to keep the seagulls away.