Coffeeshops in Groningen tend to be modest, low-key spots, and you won't run into the residents-only rule that applies in Maastricht. Step into one along Poelestraat or close to the Vismarkt and expect prices of roughly €8–€14 a gram. Keep your phone tucked away, don't bring beer inside, and treat the person behind the counter as the local expert they are.
Groningen is a student city with old bones and a relaxed pulse, and the mix shows best in its coffeeshops. These are not espresso bars. The menu is written in grams and the air smells faintly of skunk and patchouli. Forget the tourist-trap feel of Amsterdam’s Damrak strip: here the scene is smaller and quieter, and run mostly for the people who live here.
The System, Explained Properly
The Netherlands runs on a strange legal fiction. Selling cannabis is technically illegal but tolerated (“gedoogbeleid”) under strict conditions, which is why a coffeeshop can sell weed and hash but never alcohol, and why you’ll never find a bar that does both. Groningen applies the national rules strictly. You must be 18 or older (bring ID) and you buy in person, with no delivery or online ordering. Each shop may hold no more than 500 grams of stock at any time, which is part of why the good stuff sometimes runs out on a Friday night and the person behind the counter shrugs and says “next week.” The limit per customer is five grams a day, and the staff do keep to it. Groningen is also one of the ten municipalities in the government’s closed-chain experiment, so what is on the shelf and how it is supplied may differ from what you know from other cities.
Unlike Maastricht and some other southern towns, Groningen does not apply the residents-only criterion, so tourists can walk in and buy like anyone else. That is a genuine local perk. This is a university city with a large international population, and the coffeeshops have always treated visitors as part of daily life instead of gating them off.
Where You’ll Actually Find Them
Groningen has no single lit-up "coffeeshop quarter", unlike cities with an obvious red-light strip. The shops are spread quietly across the small old centre, sitting among bike shops and kebab windows on streets such as Poelestraat, near the edges of the Vismarkt, and along the calmer stretches by the A-Kerkhof and Folkingestraat. Most give themselves away with nothing more than a green-and-white sticker on the glass, and sometimes a Bob Marley flag bleached pale after years in the sun. You find them by knowing the street rather than following neon, and locals prefer it that way.
The city is small enough to cross on foot in twenty minutes, so most regulars have “their” shop the way they have their barber. It is a short walk from a flat near the Noorderplantsoen, or a five-minute cycle from the university quarter, and they only try the others when their usual is out of the good hash.
What’s on the Menu, and What It Costs
Every proper shop keeps a printed or chalkboard menu divided into weed and hash, sometimes with a short “house” or “own grow” section that regulars trust more than anything imported. Expect:
- Weed (wiet) sold by the gram, typically somewhere around €8–€14 a gram depending on strain and strength. Dutch-grown “nederwiet” dominates, often with playful names, and staff are generally happy to talk you through strength and effect if you ask rather than just point.
- Hash (hasj), often a bit cheaper per gram than the top-shelf weed, ranging from soft blond Moroccan-style to darker, stronger imports.
- Pre-rolled joints, useful if you don’t want to roll your own or don’t want a full gram. They usually cost a few euros each and are a sensible way to sample before a bigger buy.
- Rolling papers, filters and sometimes a small vaporizer or two at the counter, plus the usual bowl of free rolling tips by the till.
Cash is still the safer bet in a surprising number of shops, though card payment has crept in since the pandemic. Don’t assume, and don’t be the tourist arguing with the till about it.
How to Actually Behave in One
A coffeeshop is a small, slightly ritualised space, and Groningen’s are informal but have their rules. A few things save you from looking like you’ve never left your hostel:
- Buy at the counter, but don’t linger there chatting for ten minutes while others queue. Order, pay, step back.
- Most shops have a seating area with couches, low tables, sometimes a pool table or a battered stereo playing dub or reggae. This is where you smoke, not on the street outside and definitely not in the doorway or near a school. Tobacco may not be smoked indoors, so expect pure joints, vapes or a designated smoking room.
- No alcohol, by law. Don’t bring in a beer from the bar next door; you will be told to finish it outside or leave it at the door.
- Photography inside is almost universally banned, and for good reason: staff and other customers didn’t sign up to be someone’s Instagram story. Ask first, and assume the answer is no.
- Tipping isn’t expected as it might be in a bar, but rounding up a euro or two is appreciated and quietly noted by staff who remember faces.
The Mistakes Tourists Make
The classic error is treating a coffeeshop like a nightclub: loud, boisterous groups piling in at midnight and expecting a party. Groningen’s shops are closer in mood to a neighbourhood pub, with low light, low volume and regulars nodding at the counter staff by name. The other mistake is buying far more than you can smoke because the price looks cheap by home-country standards. Dutch weed is often notably stronger than what is sold on a street corner back home, so go slow. That goes double for edibles, if a shop happens to stock any, since the effects take much longer to arrive and hit much harder than a joint. And don’t try to take any of it across a border in either direction. Customs on trains toward Germany, a short ride away, do check, and “but it was legal where I bought it” carries zero weight once you’ve crossed the line at Nieuweschans or on the Bremen train.
Beyond the Coffeeshop: The CBD Shift
Alongside the traditional shops, Groningen has quietly grown a handful of CBD and headshop-style stores selling non-psychoactive products, grow gear and legal hemp goods. They suit anyone who wants the ritual without the high, or who is curious about the culture without committing to an evening on the couch. They sit more openly on the main shopping streets, with no green sticker code required, and make a low-stakes way to dip a toe in before deciding whether the real thing is for you.