MADRID The boy recognized the man from behind, ready to make a reed in the evening thanks to the image that returned the mirror located in front of his beer. He approached with respect to the customer, even if not in the area touched the tables that meet: “Are you Santiago Gamboa is?” Colombian writer nodded modesty and so began a dialogue. These and hundreds of meetings taking place in the oldest bar in the city, the emblematic temple of intellectuals since 1887, served by waiters knowledgeable about literature, Café Comercial, which woke up yesterday with its doors closed, to the surprise of neighbors Glorieta de Bilbao. “Closed for business interruption” it is the brief cartel where owners goodbye with a “Farewell!”
The murder that shocked Spain in the late nineteenth century, the so-called street crime Fuencarral, it occurred a few meters of this remarkable bar, which came Benito Perez Galdos. The author wrote about chronic marble tables and articles on this and his subsequent trial, and some of his famous Episodes n ational. The poet Antonio Machado had reserved a corner, the idols were also members of the generation of 27 and Jardiel Poncela and Ramon del Valle-Inclan. The Nobel Camilo Jose Cela, Literature prize named in several of its pages this redoubt where gave appointment prominent figures of bohemia and politics. David Trueba chose the bar as the setting for his film Madrid , making it clear that to portray the city was necessary to show this cafe.
A privileged witness of the kitchen of ideas and intellectual movements in an era of non-places, Commercial Café remained faithful to its spirit during its 128 years of life.
In addition to chocolate, with a generous 62% of cacao with churros and “sandwich and Coffee slope “, a system that was born in 2012 with the crisis and by which, at will, the customer so wishes, pay a drink to let a stranger without resources, their identity was also literary gatherings. Rafael Cansino Assens, who became the idol of the flesh of a young Jorge Luis Borges, during his stay in Madrid, frequented this bar and exposed his avant-garde ideas, as well as the now defunct Colonial coffee.
Café Comercial, from their official website is proud to count among its customers to authors such as Antonio Muñoz Molina. Yesterday, Arturo Perez-Reverte wrote in his Twitter account: “I do not leave the accounts If the Café Comercial have had many customers as those who now lament their closure, might still be open.”. Also the mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena said: “It gives me a lot of grief Coffee Commercial closure is part of the history of Madrid hope to reopen it.”. Neighbors and customers also expressed with posters pasted on the front left regret for closing.
Since 1909, when the owners bought this place a priest, Commercial Coffee belongs to the Contreras family. They were its current owners, Maria Isabel Serratacó Contreras and Isabel Contreras, the fourth generation over local, who took the decision to close this part of Madrid, without much explanation, although the reason is not economic because they have not applied for funding to conserve this museum of ideas where ghosts haunt of Spanish history and art. .
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