D Magazine: The Amsterdam Bar is hipster heaven

D Magazine has a really cool new article up at their website called "Your Perfect Day." The D Magazine has taken several Dallas "archetypes" like "The Sports Fan," "The Shopper," and "The Music Lover" and they designed "perfect days" to match the interests represented by each archetype. One of the archetypes is "The Hipster," and it's no surprise that The Amsterdam Bar plays a very important part in the Hipster's perfect day:

The Hipster

You eat local. You shop vintage. And you went green before green was cool.

Earth Day is Tuesday, April 22. Do your part and pick up trash around White Rock Lake, during the Saturday Shoreline Spruce-Up. The group called For the Love of the Lake provides all the supplies, including Starbucks coffee, juice, and tasty breadstuffs. After a couple of hours of hard work, reward yourself with an Illy espresso and a granola parfait at Deep Ellum’s Murray Street Coffee Shop.

Stop in at the newly opened Smart Center Dallas on Lemmon to test-drive a Smart Car. See how small you can really make your carbon footprint.

Have lunch at the Kozy Kitchen, where they serve a great grass-fed buffalo burger and gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.

Head over to the Nasher Sculpture Center to see the exhibit “Beyond the Grasp, Transcending the Physical.” Discuss the deeper meaning.

For dinner, pick up a loaf of Philomena Food Company’s stuffed Italian bread from the Dallas Farmers Market.

After a long day, unwind with a European beer at Amsterdam Bar, the anti-Uptown spot where the cool kids hang out.

There you have it folks: at the end of the day, the cool kids all head for The Amsterdam Bar.

Head on over to D Magazine and check out what all the other archetypes are up to in "Your Perfect Day."

Kind words from Quick DFW!

Last Saturday, LESLEY TÉLLEZ of Quick DFW was nice enough to stop by and check us out. She had some very kind words to say about The Amsterdam Bar and all the hard work we've done over the past couple of years.

The Amsterdam Bar isn't the coffee house you remember.

Since changing the name more than a year ago, the owners of the small Exposition Avenue space have built up an entirely new establishment. It's brighter. Warmer. Full of people – hip people, who look like they'd otherwise hang out at Lee Harvey's. Or anywhere in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The bar has a huge back patio, installed last June, where bands play when it's warm enough.

The inside is busy, too. Monday is Bad Ass Jazz Night, Thursday is trance, and on Sundays co-owner Sheldon Hubbard spins anything from Sinatra to punk. Wednesday is European Bike Night, where patrons can show off their Triumphs and Ducatis.

When we arrived around 9 p.m. on a recent Saturday, Irving-raised supermodel Erin Wasson was having her birthday party.

The place was packed with late twentysomethings in jeans, funky hats and cool accessories. Chatter and laughter echoed under the high ceilings, and the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" blared. (That's a rarity. Classic tunes like that aren't played on jukeboxes much around here.)

Several people wore X-rated balloon hats, fashioned by a middle-aged clown who was hanging out in a corner, wearing a rumpled top hat.

"You can get a dog [doing dirty things to] a cat," we overheard from an apparent balloon enthusiast. "I hired him for my birthday party."[1]

We've made lots of changes to the old bar and we're glad that folks appreciate what we've done.