Bulldog dynasty: Amsterdam coffee chain returns to its roots

Bulldog Café is probably Amsterdam’s most iconic and commercial cannabis shop. Chantal de Vries, daughter of Bulldog founder Henk de Vries, is trying to revive the coffee shop’s roots as the chain celebrates its 50th anniversary next December.

Now, Chantal, 33, who heads marketing and communications, and the rest of the family hope to rebuild and reshape the company’s legacy by doing two (perhaps contradictory) things.

On the one hand, the goal is to restore the place to its true status as what she calls “Amsterdam’s living room.” On the other, the goal is to continue to develop into a global chain of Hard Rock Cafe-style cannabis stores, hotels, restaurants, bars and clothing stores.

Red Light District Roots

Chantal sits at Bulldog’s headquarters in the heart of Amsterdam, with a giant world map behind her and brand merchandise surrounding her.

To understand what Pitbull is, what it has become and how it has lost its way over the decades, she says, we need to go back to its origins in the early 1970s. Her father, Henk, grew up on the streets of the city’s red-light district, then a poor and crime-ridden area rife with unregulated prostitution and “hard” drugs. Henk’s father ran a porn shop by the canal.

In 1970, the Dutch Pop Festival was held at Kralingse Bos near Rotterdam. The festival was intended to imitate the Woodstock festival held in the United States the previous year and bring the festival’s counterculture to the Netherlands.

Henk, then 19, went there and started handing out marijuana to people for free. Chantal said when he realized he had run out of marijuana, he started looking for more and came across people selling it. He then realized they were selling the very marijuana he had just given away and saw a business opportunity.

He immediately returned to Amsterdam and went straight to the Cotton Club (one of the city’s oldest jazz bars), where he got a few kilos of marijuana and joints, and then went straight back to the festival, laid out a blanket and started selling them. As the police famously decided to turn a blind eye to the smoking of marijuana at the festival, it marked the beginning of the country’s Tolerance Policy (Tolerance policy).

Living Room and Salvation Army

Henk began selling drugs regularly, but was soon arrested in Germany for selling marijuana across the border and spent about two years in prison. Chantal said he didn’t like talking about the experience, but when he returned to the Netherlands in 1974, he found the city had changed. Heroin was rampant, and many of his friends and family were addicted.

Henk inherited his father’s porn shop in the red light district. But the business was getting harder and dirtier. In 1975, he transformed the shop into a place of leisure, where people could smoke marijuana, relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of the streets.

“He wanted a safe place where people could drink coffee, smoke weed, play games and chat. To keep them away from heroin. That’s why we were originally called ‘The Living Room of Amsterdam’,” said Chantal. At the same time, Henk began working with the Salvation Army to help local women in the red light district and addicts around Amsterdam.

He did so, she said, because as a child he had been taken in by Majoor Bossard, a pioneer in the Salvation Army work in the Netherlands after World War II. She kept him off the streets and helped him get an education, and he promised to support her and give back to the Salvation Army once he started earning money.

Today, the Official Bulldog Foundation donates a significant amount of money to the Salvation Army each year. Chantal says she has been actively involved for the past eight years. “This Tuesday, I will be volunteering at my monthly event, cooking for local women who are abused or addicted. Every Christmas, we host a big charity gala for at least 700 people, feeding everyone, and handing out clothes and money.”

She said it was different growing up with a father like Henk because he was often away on business and spent most of his time with his company. “But when we were together, he gave me his full attention.”

“Even though he achieved so much for the company, he always stayed true to himself,” she said. “Other big names or celebrities would start bragging about their company or start showing off their clothes, but Henk still wears the same coat and fanny pack that he’s been wearing for years. I love that for him, and it shapes me.”

Business and Law
The company is preparing for its 50th anniversary celebrations and products, which will begin in January next year, and will design a series of limited edition products. The family is also working with other businesses such as clothing brand The Fast Die Young.

“We want to start producing a variety of better quality products, rather than cheaper souvenir-style products,” Chantal said. “Prices will go up as the quality improves. We want to be seen as a brand in every way.”

The Bulldogs’ commercial interests have caused it trouble in the past. In 2022, it won a nine-year Legal battle with Red BullAlleged that it infringed its trademark rights in the sale of energy drinks.

“We want all of our businesses to be known, not just cannabis but hospitality, we want people to talk about how great our restaurants, hotels and clothing are,” Chantal continued.

Gray Area

Of course, Bulldog’s early source of income was marijuana, which is still a gray area. The coffee shop was ignored, then licensed, and now Experiments in progress Establish standardized production.

Amsterdam is not part of the experiment, but Chantal hopes the company’s smoking division will ultimately benefit along with the industry as a whole.

At the same time, the chain has become synonymous with the most touristy and commercial element of Amsterdam, something many Amsterdammers, including the mayor, want to curtail.

Chantal said it wasn’t until the pandemic that they understood how the hotel had transformed over the decades from its roots as a local lounge to an international attraction.

“Local customers stopped coming back, which we hadn’t expected. It was an eye-opener for us. We had grown so fast, and then suddenly we realized we had lost the soul of the company. We were drowning in success. We had lost focus, and our strategy was no longer clear. We were making so much money, we weren’t even sure what our purpose was.”

“We had to start making changes. We changed our events, made sure locals felt welcome, and we made some changes to the product, which had a positive impact,” she said.

The chain currently has 14 locations in the Netherlands, and has opened hotels and stores in Spain, Italy, Canada and previously in Aruba (where they plan to redevelop.) Chantal said the family sees the Hard Rock Cafe as a major inspiration for the next 50 years of Bulldog, but they also said the mistakes made will never be forgotten and the solutions will always lie in the family’s origins.

“It’s a family business, and a lot of us work in it, and we’re emotionally embedded in its foundation,” she said. “It’s strong because of our family’s collaboration, and it will stay that way as long as everyone is involved.”