Eudald E. did not imagine that last Monday he would return home without dinner, but the desperate game of chairs that getting a terrace in Barcelona has turned into made him return to his apartment with an empty stomach. He was rejected in up to three places where there were free tables on Blai street, the gastro epicenter of the Poble-sec neighborhood. “I didn’t want to go to a specific place, just sit on the first terrace I caught because I wanted to read something while having dinner al fresco,” he says, as he proceeds to recall the curious ruse of excuses and reasons that alluded to him from different places to deny him the possibility al fresco dining. “On the first terrace that I got a table, a waiter quickly arrived and told me that it was reserved. He wasn’t. As soon as I got up, a group of foreigners who were behind me sat down. In the next one, they warned me that I would only have 20 minutes. I specified that I wanted to have dinner, but they insisted that I should do it within that time frame. So I got up and in the third and last one, already in the last one on the street because there were a lot of people, they told me directly that the terrace was only for groups, ”he explains.
These types of strategies are not only popular in Poble-sec. Anna T., a resident of the Eixample Dret, claims to have suffered them several times, although in a more direct and cutting way, in the Cugat bar, where she often goes. “In recent months, if the place is full, I have been rejected on the terrace several times for going alone even if there was a free table. The last time I got very upset and told them that if it was a matter of money, I was willing to play their game; that if we were going to go into voracious capitalism, how much was the minimum that I had to pay to be able to sit on the terrace and have dinner. They told me that it was not because of that, I simply could not sit alone ”, ditch.
The adventure of going out for a drink
Is a part of the hoteliers in Barcelona suffering from a mercantilist variant of the solomangarephobia on their terraces? The word that defines the fear of eating alone in public has acquired, although timidly emerging, a significant aspect this summer in the Catalan capital. A summer that has once again confirmed a trend that began to be established in the post-pandemic period and that especially irritates residents who live in the city all year round: that of seeing how on certain terraces in the Catalan capital the possibility of having a drink is denied Only one soft drink and they are only enabled for lunch or dinner. A strategy assumed by the population if it took place in the usual shifts (1:30 p.m.- 3:30 p.m./ 8:30-10:30 p.m.), but which has been extended by adapting to the eating schedules of tourists.
Since the temperatures rise in spring (and with it the rebound in visitors), some places do not accept customers for a quick drink after 12 in the morning on the terrace. And the complaints, which were already detected in 2022, are growing on social networks by denouncing specific bars for applying this strategy. “7:43 p.m. and they didn’t want to serve us on the terrace of the Sants rice restaurant because ‘it was already dinner time’ Okay”, tweeted this week Clara Ziegnem. “Four in the afternoon. Before entering the MACBA we want to have a coffee. They don’t serve it to us on the terrace because “it’s time for an aperitif [previo a la cena, entendemos]”, shared on the same network journalist Noemí Vilaseca on July 22.
Consulted in this regard about the validity of these practices, the Barcelona City Council sent the Hoteliers Guild or the Generalitat about this area. From the aforementioned union, for its part, there was no response after the request of this newspaper. The difficulty in getting a table outdoors occurs in a year in which its presence in the streets has expanded. According to the data that the City Council itself provided to the Restoration Guild last April, the current terraces were estimated at 6,375 (5,700 before the pandemic), the tables at 29,800 and the chairs at 114,056. The Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB) has calculated, based on open municipal data, that the increase in licenses between 2019 and 2022 has been 2,284, 62%.
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Get a ticket to get a place in Gràcia
Some venues are already taking practical measures to avoid customer collapse and misunderstandings on their terraces. This summer a new form of access has been launched in the Gràcia neighbourhood, specifically in the Flanders café in Plaça Rovira i Trias. A ticket machine has been set up there that offers a waiting number to users, as is customary in market stalls or other consumer establishments. The device only works when the seats are fully occupied; if there is free space at the tables, it is not necessary to take a batch.
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