2 thoughts on “The Death of the Spanish Bar”

  1. Interesting, not least because this has been shot in the area where I live and I know quite a few of these bars. But I don’t fully buy the ‘platos cuadrados’ argument. Before the trendy gastrobars the franquicias were already taking over – we got “Cañas & Tapas”, “Tapas & Vinos”, “Tapas, Vinos, Cañas y Tu Puta Madre”. Not very inspiring places offering usually worse tapas than the traditional bars they replaced. Having done some data capture in central Madrid recently I’ve been struck by just how many places are owned by a few companies.

    I think some of the people interviewed tell the broader story, these bars are family businesses and in many cases the children simply didn’t want to take over – although maybe now they will with the crisis cutting other options? Their parents belonged to a generation that emigrated to Madrid in search of a better life and which has now reached retirement age. Lucky them and may they enjoy it. There are still quite a lot of older style bars left, you just need to search for them a bit. Some of them are very successful, El Palentino (which is featured in the film) is a hugely popular bar. In the middle of trendy Chueca you can find an old-style Gallego which does a roaring trade.

    It’s as much about botellón culture as about trendy overpriced and miniscule portions. What is really spreading in the area featured in the film are those places that offer takeaways in all varieties. A lot of younger people hardly go to bars at all, they drink in the street or the parks and they buy a slab of pizza or a kebab to keep them going. Meanwhile I spotted the first closure of the burger bar wave just last week – and the expensive places round here aren’t lasting very long unless they do offers these days.

  2. For what it’s worth (and I’ve only been here 4 weeks) I loathe anything other than a round plate in any restaurant or bar or home. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

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