As you know, The Curmudgeon likes a moan. Today he is wondering what’s going on with bars here in Spain and also with political opinions.
Bars, etc
“When I were nowt but a lad”, most bars and restaurants in Spain were open all day until late. After they closed, you could go on to a bar de copas, pay double and enjoy the company of pretty young señoritas or even foreign girls on their travels.
It is often suggested that they were “prozzies”, but not in my experience.
But I digress…..
What has happened in Spain, is that, post-Covid, you’re struggling to find anywhere open, especially off-season. Bar owners shut when it suits them, often without notice.
A couple of recent examples spring to mind.
In the tiny village where I live (population 990), you’re struggling to find anywhere open in the evenings, unless there’s a local feria or it’s high season.
Thursdays are particularly bad. In the daytime only two places are open, but they both close around 4.00 pm. In the evenings, two other places open up, both bares de copas, where they only serve micro-waved pizzas and the like.
In the big town, Ronda (pop. 33,000 and falling) I haven’t got a clue what is going on.
The other week we booked a few days in advance a table for four for Friday night in one of the best new restaurants in town. Booking accepted. We were looking forward to eating there for the first time.
However, when we looked at their website on the Friday afternoon to check out the menu, we learned that the restaurant was going to be shut that night. They didn’t ring me to cancel. I rang repeatedly but no one picked up. Unprofessional, or what? We shan't be rushing to go there any time soon.
Fortunately, I managed to get a booking at one of our favourite long-established restaurants in town. As always it was excellent, if somewhat expensive.
To sum up, it seems to me that, unlike in the old days when bars, cafes and restaurants were a “service”, the owners are only interested in themselves and making money. At the first sign of an empty terrace, they shut up shop. We’ve even been hurried up to pay our bill because they wanted to close – at 4.00 pm!
No money to be made? OK, we’ll shut, without so much as a here no there!
Let's call a spade a spade. The restaurant that let us down was La Tropicana, the one where we enjoyed a lovely meal was El Almocabar.
Political opinion
I had a conversation with a Spanish neighbour in our local bar the other day. Sergio is only in his 30s, yet he was longing for a return to the ideals of franquismo. Astonishing.
A few days later I bumped into his father, who is in his mid-50s. Esteban is of the same view as his son (or the other way round!), yet he was a mere infant when Franco died in 1975.
I cannot fathom it. It’s a bit like those Americans, British, Turks, Hungarians and Russians who still believe in Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Recep Erdogan, Victor Orban and “El hijo de Putin”.
It’s enough to turn you into a curmudgeon!
What’s going on?
© The Curmudgeon
Tags: Americans, bars, bar de copas, Boris Johnson, Brexit, British, Curmudgeon, Donald Trump, Erdogan, Hungarians, Orban, Putin, Recep Erdogan, restaurants, Ronda, Russians, Turks, Victor Orban