The Plug (formerly Utopia)

[Ghost]

Wow…soon there will be only a few owners of all the coffeeshops. Just like the game of monopoly, man I dislike capitalism

Yes you 'Hit the Nail' on the head there buddy

[DjShaggy]

To be fair the guy said since he was a kid he always dreamed of owning a coffeeshop In Amsterdam. Now he owns half of Amsterdam. Fair play to him.

He will be fucked if the tourist ban does come tho.

[Kermit]

Gotta catch them all, Katsu next I think

[la2019]

Shame Rusland has become another Plug as that was a cool shop whenever I visited it, I personally do not like all these shops becoming one brand as prices can be controlled and are normally more expensive than other shops by a few euro etc and they all have the same type of feel inside them, not a lot of ambience. Don't get me wrong fair play to the guy swallowing all these venues up and turning them in to The Plugs and making a brand name, soon though it will just be Greenhouse, Barneys and Plugs around town and a few scattered sole outlets. Not sure what I make of it all. Progress I suppose everything changes in time

I couldn't agree more! The consolidation craze has me worried for some of my favorite outliers...Between that and others remodeling (often to look more contemporary) while I haven't been able to visit has me wondering how different things are going to feel once I do finally make it back. Again, like you said, that's progress and inevitable, but I DO think it was sped up by the pandemic a bit...

[Tokeing tom]

Indeed, it seems Rusland has become The Plug XXX, latest member of the The Plug chain.

Shame Rusland has become another Plug as that was a cool shop whenever I visited it, I personally do not like all these shops becoming one brand as prices can be controlled and are normally more expensive than other shops by a few euro etc and they all have the same type of feel inside them, not a lot of ambience. Don't get me wrong fair play to the guy swallowing all these venues up and turning them in to The Plugs and making a brand name, soon though it will just be Greenhouse, Barneys and Plugs around town and a few scattered sole outlets. Not sure what I make of it all. Progress I suppose everything changes in time

Prices are cheaper than before and menu is fresh and modern, I never liked the place, for me this is a positive change

[Not_the_monk]

Feels like decades since I've been in Rusland, remember their White Russian fondly from the 90's though. More ambivalent about this one than I was about the original Utopia takeover, didn't really mesh with the Plug vibe but idk if that's changed much since then.

To an extent this consolidation thing has been happening for a long time anyway; Rokerii back in the day, Kadinsky, Greenhouse, Hunters, Barneys, the Siberie/Supermarkt/Loft group, the Amsterdam genetics ones etc. Always thought it interesting that most of them seem to stop at a few locations rather than one chain ending up with a lot. Anyway, its always sad to lose unique shops, but so many have closed outright over the years, and so many of those more unique places especially in the centrum long ago lost their real personality, that maybe at least its not a bad thing the location will still exist and possibly have a menu worth browsing if passing.

[Marok21]

Really sad to hear about Coffeeshop Rusland while it wasn´t really my place to go. I went there a few times but mostly before they renovated the shop... I went there because they used to sell the cheapest ice hash around but in retrospective it wasn´t something really special but it was ok for the price The coffeeshop itself was mostly pretty empty so nice for a relaxed smoke when they renovated the place it lost its relaxing atmosphere and I passed the shop most of the time without entering.
I will probably visit the shop more often now than I used to, mainly because of the better quality but I am skeptical whether the shop will be relaxed and pleasant... like with coffeeshop Utopia RIP

At the moment, many "old" Amsterdam coffeeshops are selling their licenses, which gives me the impression that many are afraid that the coffeeshops will be closed to tourists in the next years. Or why selling a license of a Amsterdam centrum coffeeshop which is like a permission to print money Well corona is maybe also a reason and some of the coffeeshops that were sold were not really busy... on the other hand why chains like Plug, Terps Army and so on invest so much money although nobody know exactly what will happen...

I hate the trend towards more chain coffeeshops and less unique shops like said before especially the coffeeshops in the centrum lost a lot of their charme but there are still some nice places and lets hope that the new ones focus not only on
fancy strain names and modern design but on a good atmosphere!

[DjShaggy]

It makes sense really, the clubs in Spain are meant to be no profit, so they can't spend alot of the cash they are making, bring it to Amsterdam and put it through the coffeeshops which are taxed suddenly its nice clean drug money again. Then there's the massive mark up on "cali weed"...

[petty]

Rusland changed owners a few years ago. It went from being an inclusive shop where even retired citizens would stop for coffee refreshment at an outside table to a grasping establishment where total rules of consumption applied. It also shrank physically. Originally there was a raised ground floor with bar at the back whilst at the front was a lower room and a couple of passageway seats and added to that a basement with goods on display in glass cases where the toilets were situated as well as a cigarette machine. At that time the atmosphere was relaxed and congenial with wooden fittings and people circulating freely. The original owners had been around since the seventies until they retired. There was also a connection to Siberie as staff from Rusland left to set up Siberie. I get the impression that the owner of the Siberie group of coffeeshops has been around for some time and they try and maintain an ethical approach to the business.

[Lemming]

This is a great debate but we may be straying a little off the topic of Plug/Utopia reviews.

Thoughts about Rusland/Plug XXX should probably be in its own thread here
.

Maybe the general discussion about the chainification or Amsterdam Geneticifation of the coffeeshop scene is worthy of its own thread in the Coffeeshops and Cannabis forum. Just a thought.

[Marok21]

This is a great debate but we may be straying a little off the topic of Plug/Utopia reviews.
Thoughts about Rusland/Plug XXX should probably be in its own thread here.
Maybe the general discussion about the chainification or Amsterdam Geneticifation of the coffeeshop scene is worthy of its own thread in the Coffeeshops and Cannabis forum. Just a thought.

True! We really got off topic a bit... sorry. Just one more thing

It makes sense really, the clubs in Spain are meant to be no profit, so they can't spend alot of the cash they are making, bring it to Amsterdam and put it through the coffeeshops which are taxed suddenly its nice clean drug money again. Then there's the massive mark up on "cali weed"...

Yeah that sounds very plausible. I totally forgot that the clubs in spain are "non-profit" which in reality is not always the case I think

now back to topic

[macky]

If you look what’s going on its the building there after You can buy property in most country’s and know one asks where the cash came from The worlds GDP works on cleaning money being brought into the system e.g. London property gains where made on cleaning dirty money . Not to pick on England most country’s let foreign owners buy property .My country one of the worst for cleaning money . Do not think CS will go all together,only the big will convert to legal grown weed . Sorry Lem !
Sure you will move this to other forum some where

[texasxsmoker]

Stopped in mid afternoon.. Purchased 2 strains. Place is expensive but everything in center is.

Dutch Mac 18 Euro- decent.. looks nice but doesn’t smoke like the apple fritter. Not very smooth.



Dutch Apple Fritter 17 Euro- nice sativa, smoked a joint of this in the shop.

[Marok21]

Skywalker OG hash (16€/g) - Darker creamy soft sticky hash. From the hashes the budtender showed to me this one looked best to me because I was looking for some more creamy type of hash. From look it remembered me of the some batches of the Lava Cake filtered hash from Barneys which I really liked. The Skywaler OG hash bubbled strong when touched by the flame and smelled nicely and natural of the used genetics. Also good taste and smoother to smoke than I thought. It gave me a nice effect while not as strong as the Tahoe OG from Solo and the Papaya OG from 1e Hulp but it´s still strong enough while in the end I expected a little bit more in terms of effect On the other hand my tolerance is pretty high atm so a bit hard to judge

By the way it seems like the menus of the different "Plug" shops in town are different in terms of hash at least.

[DjShaggy]

By the way it seems like the menus of the different "Plug" shops in town are different in terms of hash at least.

Some guy on reddit was trying to convince me that they aren't owned and operated by the same guy, like he's just allowing them to use the name and branding. I dunno I would be surprised If that's true but If they were all his places I'm sure the menus would be the same...

Who knows.