Sugar Factory

A night theater next to Melkweg

Right in front of Melkweg, on the Lijnbaansgracht of Leidseplein, four entrepreneurs opened a venue in 2005 that didn't want to be just a nightclub. Sugar Factory presented itself as a night theater: a club, live stage, and theater hall in the same venue, with the idea of bringing culture to the night. Among the founders was Jacek Rajewski, who had already worked at Boom Chicago, Panama, and Winston. The name wasn't invented by an agency: the building had been the De Granaatappel sugar refinery, in the same industrial block that would later be occupied by Melkweg.

From refinery to seven-day dance floor

After the factory closed in 1920, the property served as a cookie factory, artist studios, and, between 1977 and 1986, the makeshift headquarters of the Netherlands Opera. The current main hall was the largest of nine rehearsal spaces. When the Amuse club closed in 2005, the venue finally received a stable program. Independent and without subsidies, Sugar Factory opened seven days a week: concerts at sunset, clubbing until 05:00, and exhibitions in a gallery that shared a floor with the smoking room. In 2012, it renovated the foyer and the small room, with an integrated bar, and Manne van der Zee took over the management.

DJ booth at floor level and ADE

Its dance floor identity was built with both its own nights and external collectives. Wicked Jazz Sounds was born with the venue on April 3, 2005, and occupied Sundays until the end of 2018: DJs and live musicians playing funk, soul, jazz, and house, with the audience just a foot away from the booth. During the week there were Techno Tuesdays, Night Shift, or Disco Cult; on Saturdays, SSSST. During the Amsterdam Dance Event, it programmed house and techno with Modeselektor, Honey Dijon, Radio Slave, or Kraak & Smaak. The same dance floor hosted Frankie Knuckles, Kerri Chandler, Carl Craig, Gilles Peterson, Black Coffee, Âme & Dixon, Madlib, or J. Dilla, along with live performances by Lily Allen, Joss Stone, or Gregory Porter. Night Mayor Shamiro van der Geld called it that other club next to Melkweg and Paradiso: smaller, more hybrid, and more of a talent incubator.

Closure in 2019

In 2018, it organized 405 parties and 165 concerts for 157,283 visitors, but the operation didn't balance the books. Weekends became complicated with the tourist crowd of Leidseplein, and debts, including rent, piled up. On January 7, 2019, it filed for bankruptcy and immediately shut its doors. Wicked Jazz Sounds had already moved to Melkweg. Months later, after a renovation, the building reopened as Lovelee. Sugar Factory remained the fourteen-year-old night theater that, facing two giants, tried to ensure Amsterdam had a stage for new talent every night.