Bar Spek closed in 2024 after ten years anchoring the corner of Admiraal de Ruijterweg in De Baarsjes. Foodini's industry sheet reported the closure under the banner "Bar Spek sluit, maar niet getreurd" — Bar Spek is closing, but don't despair — confirming the team relocated to Bartack on Postjesweg. The De Westkrant follow-up reported the original space was being prepared for a branch of Le French Café.
For its decade-plus run it was a textbook De Baarsjes neighborhood gastropub: all-day kitchen, gin-and-tonic and cocktail programme after dark, sidewalk terrace that ran the canal side of the street in summer. It earned 4.2 on Restaurant Guru off 1,927 reviews and a near-cult status on Yelp Amsterdam (73 reviews) and Tripadvisor's De Baarsjes ranking. The page below is preserved for the name-based search traffic.
The room ran roughly 40 covers across a tiled front bar, a back dining section and a sidewalk terrace that opened onto Admiraal de Ruijterweg. Reviewers across Tripadvisor De Baarsjes and Restaurant Guru consistently described it as a "forever favorite" — language that applies to all-day, neighborhood-anchor places where the appeal is reliability rather than novelty. The bar itself was unremarkable; the seat to ask for was always the terrace, watching boats on the Kostverlorenvaart.
The evening programme leaned on a long gin and tonic list with rotating garnishes — common to Amsterdam West gastropubs of the 2014–2020 era — alongside a short cocktail card built around Negronis, Aperol Spritz and a house Pisco Sour. The wine list was deeper than the drinks list suggested. Restaurant Guru's review pattern flags fresh pizzas and reliable coffee; the cocktail mentions cluster around the spritz and martini orders. Service inconsistencies on weekend evenings appear in 1-star reviews — slow drinks, long waits — but the four-star average held across a decade.
Daytime was prams and freelancers — the De Baarsjes brunch crowd. Evenings tilted to thirties-and-up locals from Mercatorplein, Bos en Lommer and the surrounding streets. Tourists rarely made it this far west, which is part of why the closure landed quietly outside Dutch-language local press. The Foodini and De Westkrant reports were the main signals of the shutdown.