The price that a bar charges you for a coffee usually depends on issues such as where you drink it, what kind of grain is or what you accompany it. In Barceloneta, the tourist heart of Barcelona, in that equation an extra factor has begun to sneak in: how long it takes to drink it. If you sit on the restaurant terrace and hurry the cup in less than half an hour you pay a price, if you relax too much and pass the 30 minutes it will be another and if you already directly lose the notion of time and you end up being more than an hour with the cup in front it will cost you much more. The same goes for tea.
The measure has already generated debate.
Coffee and minutes issue. In full Plaça de la Barceloneta, not much distance from the Museum of History of Catalonia, there is a small cafeteria that has gone viral in networks. His name: Perfetto. The reason: a small poster. On Sunday @maria_ostia, an X user, uploaded a tweet with a photo in the establishment, a plasticized price table and a message: “In Barceloneta if you want a coffee you have to take it in less than 30 minutes.”
If the publication of María is already on the way of 302,000 visualizations and has given the news in the Catalan media and the rest of the country is not however because of what it says, but for what it shows. The table in question basically details what a coffee with milk costs, a cappuccinoa cut, a espresso or a tea depending on the time that the client passes on the terrace. More time, higher price.
Click on the image to go to Tweet.You choose: 1.6, 2.5 or 4 euros. In the image it is seen for example that a coffee with milk costs 1.6 euros. That is the starting price. If the customer passes with its consumption more than 30 minutes the rate is already 2.5 euros and if the time exceeds the price returns to another stretch until it stays in four. Something similar happens with the cappuccinothe cuts, the espresso or tea. For example, a cup of the infused drink costs two euros, but the rate rises to three past the first half hour and four with the second.
What gravels that price increase is supposedly the time that the client enjoys the terrace of the cafeteria. It is not strange that businesses charge a supplement to serve drinks or meals outside the premises, but much less is that the price varies depending on the minutes that the customer passed on the terrace. Although for despair of the hotelier I am more than an hour with a single drink.
“Businesses are not profitable”. eldiario.es has spoken with Massimo, the business owner, who explains that he decided to print the famous table after witnessing a anger between customers precisely because of the lack of space. “It was a night when some were waiting for a table they got tired and faced those who were sitting, who had been lengthening without consuming,” says the hotelier. For him the table is a “warning”, “a way of raising awareness.”
-Despite the level of detail of the rates, Massimo ensures that the cafeteria does not apply them strictly either. “It is actually a kind of joke. And just we charge this if we have customers waiting. No one likes to see how people occupy a table where you want to sit if they are not consuming anything,” he says. “Joke” or not, the hotelier recognizes that customers who eternalize their passage through the terraces with a single drink directly affects business profitability. “You can’t spend many hours without consuming. If not, businesses are not profitable.”
A not -so new measure. To collect more or less for a coffee based on the time that the client passes on a terrace is not usual, but there are other formulas that do have a tour in the sector. For example, businesses that require a minimum consumption or restaurant tables with limited time. Today it is relatively common that when a reservation is made, the waiter reports that the table can be used only until a certain time. Sometimes because the same table is reserved for another customer in a second turn.
Another practice that is not new are the timed terraces, in which the customer stay is limited to prevent them from occupying their limited places with a single cane or coca-cola. In 2022 The newspaper It echoed in fact how some hoteliers in Barcelona were applying a kind of “time tarification”, with posters in which they reported the time each client could be based on what he asked. A soda gave right to 30 minutes. A meal at an hour and a half.
The background debate. Although over the last days the media focus has been put in Perfetto, the reality is that its decision connects with other background debates that go far beyond the small cafeteria. The first is the attempt of the restoration to make their businesses profitable in a complex context, marked by the rise in prices (special mention for coffee) and the crisis of old formats, such as the reeds or the menus of the day, in crisis precisely because of how difficult it is to adjust costs.
The other key debate, especially if we talk about Barcelona, is that of the Tourist. The flow of tourists (including foreigners) moves millions of euros, but also directly affects the day to day of the inhabitants of the great destinations in such basic aspects as housing or trade, influencing its operation. I recognized it recently Malaga in a report in which it warned that excessive pressure from the sector “can cause the expulsion of native business, being replaced by souvenir stores and shops oriented to tourists.”
Images | Bryan Dijkhuizen
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