De Plak opened on Bloemerstraat in 1976 and has been run by its own staff since 1982, currently about twenty people who share the decisions and put part of the profit into causes, queer organisations among them. It is not a gay bar and has never called itself one. It is the place gay men and lesbians in Nijmegen went when there was nowhere else, alongside squatters, refugees and activists, and it kept that mixed room afterwards.
The kitchen runs from midday, with vegan cooking taken seriously rather than added on, and there is seating outside on the street. Later the room turns over to music: DJs, live bands, theatre and spoken word. Queer nights are part of that programme rather than an exception to it, from the long-running Vreemd party to FLINTA evenings put on by younger collectives.
It is a five-minute walk from both gay bars in the centre, and it is where the city's queer scene overlaps with its alternative one.
