The average Spaniard spends far more time in cafes and bars during the week than their counterparts in the UK. It’s not just because the coffee and the food and drinks are cheaper and definitely nicer, but also because it’s altogether a friendlier home from home experience.
It’s no big deal going out for a coffee or coke at your local bar it’s just like popping into the neighbours or another family member’s house. Friendship and warmth are guaranteed and if you want to sit in a corner nursing one solitary drink you will be treated with respect and certainly not moved on! Oh dear where does England go wrong?
Spanish men start off in the cafes before breakfast, at about half past seven if they are manual workers and a bit later if they are white collar workers. There’s just time for a coffee and a chat before heading off to work. And Spain being Spain, this is often accompanied by the odd cigarette or two! (Remember bars only have to have a no-smoking area if they have over 100 square metres of floor and this rules out most local top-of-the-road type bars).
Breakfast in Spain on a working day is at ten o’clock on the dot. In every city, town and village you can see hordes of people leaving the workplace and heading for their favourite bar. This time its coffee and a tostado, the latter often served with olive oil, tomatoes and garlic or with zurrapa (red or white lard with bits of meat in it-quite tasty actually). Bars are very busy until 10.30, so service can be a bit slow for the tourists! Not that you will be unwelcome you just have to bide your time.
At lunchtime, from two o’clock onwards, bars are very busy again. If home is nearby people will go home but the delicious and very cheap “menu del dia “attracts a lot of workers, especially construction workers who need feeding up. Tables will be preset and each group of guys from one site or another has their own table. Hands are washed first but working clothes are acceptable! Before the return to work in the afternoon bars are again full of the noise of the expresso machines as people top up on their caffeine to last them until early evening.
Work over, everyone hits the bars again with their workmates to have another coffee, or this time, a beer and a tapas. The noise level is phenomenal as people relax and look forward to the evening ahead and go over the day’s activity. Yet again, after supper lots of men wander up to their local café for yet another coffee or beer. Have you got the idea yet? The cafes are a major social institution!
Well what about the non working part of society? Where do they fit in? Old men are the backbone of café society; they head up to a favourite bar often before breakfast and quite often can be seen still sitting in the same seat at 8 o’clock at night. Not drinking very much you understand but chatting with friends ,playing dominoes or cards and watching the world go by. It’s a much livelier alternative to the OAP day centre! No-one disturbs them and often not a word will be said by a group of old men for hours –they have said it all.
Young mothers too, are regulars in cafes and bars, meeting with groups of friends when the children are at school. Older retired ladies are not often seen in bars but certainly don’t miss out on the frequent family Sunday lunches at local restaurants or during ferias and fiestas!
It’s a home from home-get familiar with your local bar!
