Brouwerij Hoop — Restaurant in Zaanstad

Yesterday, we booked the brewery tour and tasting through a 3rd party platform. It was supposed to be from 4 to 5pm, and include a brewery tour, a beer tasting, and some bitterballen and nuts.

We arrived, and were told "we can't start the tour now, it's too busy". The tour finally started at 4:35. The guide basically just walked us through his machines, and the tour took 15 minutes. After that, we were told to sit anywhere in their bar. After 20 more minutes, he arrived with 2x10cl glasses for each person and said "this one is an orange beer, and this one is a stroopwaffel beer". This was the extent of the beer tasting, no explanation added to this, and no actual tasting, since I can't say that trying 2 samples is a tasting. After 40 more mins of waiting, since we thought maybe he'd come back with more info, more beers, or the snacks, we asked his colleague about this who said "I'll ask him to come over". After another 20 minutes, nothing. It's now 6pm, and we got a 15 mins tour, 2 samples, and no snacks. I went to talk to him, and explained that we were disappointed, since this is not what we paid for. He told us that if we'd booked directly with them and not a 3rd party, it would have been cheaper (20€ rather than 30€ per person that we paid). He also said he had no idea that we were supposed to get bitterballen and nuts. He said he'd pass our comments to his management.

So at the end of the day, he didn't care about giving us those snacks we paid for, and didn't seem to care either that we paid 30€ per person for 2 samples and a 15 minutes tour. This was a waste of our time and money. We've done multiple brewery tours and beer tastings in the past, and this one qualifies as neither, except a...

Today I went there after 40km bicycle trip. I remember this place from 3 years ago when it was still very nice. This time I’ve ordered burger and asked waitress to make it medium for me. She responded with beautiful smile that is no problem at all! See the photo… I barely could cut it with steak knife it was not well done I would call it twice dead. First when they killed the cow and second time by the cook… for the beer I’ve ordered I’ve wait for 15min. Red coleslaw was soft with some horrible spices like cumin (why???) it is so easy to make it fresh & crispy. Half portion of fries was over fried… but then all became clear when I went to pay for the food. In the kitchen were to young boys playing on their phones instead of at least pretending to be at work. Is worth to add it that the place was not even half full and ok the beer was very nice. I had tropical session IPA that reminded me of my favourite Lagunitas IPA. Unfortunately Google don’t let me give stars for drinks… in that case I would give 5 stars for it. So long story short if you wanna drink nice beer that place won’t disappoint you unless the tables will be still sticky. It was nice in the end also hehe I’ve asked one of the waitresses to buy a bottled beer. She went with me to see if they got it then she said it is available so I’ve asked for 2 bottles. Then she went out to other room and started to tight up her shoes and after she finished saw me standing and asked how may she help me??? 🙈 seriously oweners… hire people with experience and professional cooks. You really had a good food and nice service before please fix it to be...

Today a waiter tried to rob us. It was my 3rd time there and I already knew the service was slow and not that good but meh. We orderer 3 beers and bitterballen for 25.75, so we paid the waiter (not the bold, but the blond one) with a €50 bill and he went away. We were waiting for the change (like any normal person would do) and after several attempts we called him and told him about the change. He played dumb at first, and then played the offended act saying "we don't do that in the Netherlands" and smashed a €20 bill against the table. Besides the fact that he clearly knew about the change and had it in his back pocket I told him he was missing 4.25, he played dumb again and went to search for the rest bringing a bunch of small coins in a really rude way smashing them against the table, again, threatening if "that was it".

I'm usually prone to leave tip, specially when service is good, but taking the liberty of the change as a tip directly is rude and impolite. I'm not doing this for hating, I actually bought two porter beers after this because I like them and I really hope the owner takes measures about this so it doesn't happen to...