Amsterdam Cafe shareholders invest 2m euros in new hotel

The shareholders of Bucharest’s Rembrandt hotel and Amsterdam Cafe will invest two million euros in a new hotel located in the historical centre, after closing down the Amsterdam Cafe bar and restaurant business because of the works being conducted in the Lipscani area.
Although the Amsterdam Cafe generated revenues worth over 600,000 euros, the shareholders decided to temporarily give up this business and concentrate on the hotel segment, by opening another hotel in Bucharest.
“We will open a second hotel, which will also be located in the historical centre, as there are a number of beautiful buildings here. It will have a larger capacity than the Rembrandt hotel, i.e. at least 40 rooms, a conference hall, a restaurant, a bar and also other facilities. For the time being, everything is at a project stage, but we are hoping it will be finalised within a maximum 2 to 3 years,” said Alina Buzea, marketing manager at the Rembrandt hotel.
The Rembrandt hotel has a 15-room capacity, with the original investment amounting to approximately one million euros. The building was acquired in 2002 and opened at the beginning of January 2005.
Gijsbert Huijink and Jerry van Schaik have also owned Amsterdam Grand Cafe since 2002 (also located in the Lipscani area), which they decided to close due to a lack of clients. The road works being conducted in the Lipscani area have caused a decline in sales for several other restaurants and coffee shops, such as City Grill and Gregory’s.
The initial investment in Amsterdam Cafe stood at around one million euros, with the restaurant and bar seeing a business worth around 2.4 million RON (i.e. around 680,000 euros) last year. “Before 2005, we witnessed yearly increases of 15%-20%. Restricted access in the historical centre, because of road works, was primarily why we started losing clients during the day, as people no longer went shopping in the area. We would have reached a business worth 3.2-3.4 million RON (i.e. around one million euros), but instead we posted a turnover of just 850,000 RON (approximately 250,000 euros) in the first part of 2007, an insufficient sum to meet rising costs,” said Gijsbert Huijink, one of the founders of Rembrandt Hotel.