Café Eddie's

Café Eddie's is a music café on Papiermolen in Houten, a town just south of Utrecht. For years it has served as a regular meeting place for music lovers, people who come out for a party and neighbours from the surrounding area. The venue mixes a varied programme of live music with parties that it deliberately keeps affordable, which is how it describes itself: cheap nights out, and good live music alongside them.

The room is also known for something outside music. Eddie's counts itself among the largest darts pubs in the Netherlands, so the café has a second identity beyond the stage, one that draws its own crowd and gives the place the feel of a proper pub rather than a purpose built concert hall. Live performances happen on a regular basis, and its event history includes touring and cover acts. One After 909, for instance, has played there, with doors typically opening at 20.00 and the band starting at 21.00. Concert listings for the venue are kept on agenda sites, which show a steady run of past and upcoming shows.

Beyond gigs, the café opens its floor to other kinds of social evenings. It has hosted singles parties aimed at people in their forties, fifties and sixties, which fits its role as a general gathering spot for the area instead of a venue tied to a single scene. Practical details are friendly to visitors who travel in: parking is free right at the door, and public transport is possible from Utrecht by train and then bus 47 to the Oude Dorp stop. For anyone in or around Houten looking for a no frills night with a live band, Eddie's is the local address.