The Rokade — the chess move our name comes from

We get this at the bar regularly: why are you called Rokade, anyway? The short answer is “chess.” The slightly longer answer is here.

The move

In chess, castling — the rokade — is a special move. It’s the only move in the entire game where two pieces move at once: the king and a rook swap places.

• The king slides two squares sideways.
• The rook jumps over the king and lands on the square on the other side.

Two pieces, one move. A defensive move — your king ends up in a safer position — and a statement at the same time: I’m better placed now, and my rook is more active for it. Two wins in one move.

And the name?

When we started out in 1990, we were at first in a tiny premises smack in the centre of town, literally in the shadow of the town-hall clock tower — right opposite what was then the town hall, now the city office. (In Dutch we say onder de rook van — “under the smoke of” — for “very close to.” The pun was intentional.) After a couple of years we’d outgrown the place and moved, in 1992, to a larger spot just up the road on the Deldenerstraat, where we’ve been ever since.

One move, two premises, a better position. Rokade. The name was on the door long before we hung up a sign.

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The full story — including the chess-club cover, the three-day squat, and the building that used to be a Chicken King — is on About us.