The absence of a generational change will make the legendary Espinardo bar close its doors next August after 77 years
The Las Acelgas bar is the second home of many residents of Espinardo and its imminent closure due to the retirement of its owner has caused a stir, not only in the Murcian neighborhood, but also on social networks. “Some customers want to hit me when I tell them,” jokes Carmelo Meseguer, the owner of the establishment. “Although the real boss is my wife, who is in the kitchen,” he points out. “When people find out that I’m going to close they tell me ‘boy, don’t go,'” he says.
The tavern opened its doors in 1945, when Carmelo’s parents, José and Antonia, set up a ‘barrel’ in one of the rooms of the family home. “I was born here in the bar, literally,” says this hotelier who is about to turn 67. «At that time, women gave birth in the houses and where we now have the tables in the living room was the bedroom. So as soon as I came into the world I was already smelling of wine, chard and michirones », he highlights.
Carmelo with his parents, his sisters and his grandmother in the 1960s. /
He is the youngest of four brothers who have been involved in the bar until twenty years ago, when Carmelo took over the reins on his own, keeping alive the typical tapas recipes that his mother began to make 77 years ago. Thus began the story of a “very slave” business that he will say goodbye to on August 14. “Either you get fully involved or it doesn’t work. You always have to be here because there are many bars, but not so many of those that become second homes for customers. My wife and I have worked a lot and enjoyed little », explains Carmelo, who confesses that it is very few on Mondays that they close for rest that he can really be free to go to the beach or lie on the sofa.
The youngest son of the founders, Carmelo Meseguer, took over the business alone twenty years ago
Although the owner of this long-standing bar acknowledges that he has never fried an egg, customers speak of ‘Carmelo’s tapas’ and define them as “the best” that can be tasted in the area. “When I found out that they were closing I was very sad because they run it wonderfully and everything is delicious,” says Caridad while she has just had some anchovies with a cane at the bar counter. Fried chard is the flagship dish, which they prepare “by the piece” with ñoras, garlic and sardines. Hence the name of the bar. “Even the lads who don’t try vegetables at home come looking for them. Every day we make two very large fountains, ‘the same’ as my mother’s”, endorses Carmelo.
VICENTE VICENS / AGM
Same tapas in another place
Also very successful are the potato omelette, the lean tomato sauce, the fried beans, the battered cod or the cabañil garlic potatoes that Piedad has taught Liliana and Vivia to make, two Bolivian workers who have been in the bar’s kitchen for fifteen years and that they will continue serving Carmelo’s mother’s tapas in a nearby place that will open in the coming months.
«My daughters, Beatriz and Marta, have their jobs and they are not going to stay with the bar, although they have been giving us a hand while they studied. I didn’t want to pass it on because we live just upstairs, so we thought that the best thing would be for the cooks to continue on another ground floor, but with the same menu. So that the name is not lost, I have let them call it Las Acelgas 2”, announces Carmelo, who is going to help his employees “in everything he can” so that they do not lose their jobs due to their retirement. “Now I will be the one who is going to invite me there, I have already told you that I will always be the chief emeritus,” says Carmelo, who hopes to be able to take advantage of his retirement to go more to the house he has in Mazarrón, take care of his little granddaughter Carmela and make the occasional trip with his wife. “We have to enjoy what we have left.”
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