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The 10 types of people you always see in a Spanish bar

Spain is said to be a nation of bars, but you're likely to see the same sorts of people wherever you go. Here are the ten you're most likely to bump into.

The 10 types of people you always see in a Spanish bar
People stand at a bar in Madrid in March 2020. Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP.

If you’ve lived in Spain or spent any significant amount of time here, you’ll know that Spain is a nation of bars.

To be specific, there’s 175,890 of them scattered across the country on every street corner and alleyway across the country from the northernmost tip of Asturias all the way down to ferry port at Algeciras.

According to figures from Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE), that works out to a bar for every 270 inhabitants, and there are just 142,781 unlucky people – around 0.3 percent of the total national population – who live in a municipality without one.

And we’re not talking about a pub or some sleek cocktail bar here, we’re talking about the traditional, family-run bars you can find in every barrio (neighbourhood) across the country.

You know the type. The humble ‘local’ where you can get a beer, coffee or tapa at any time of day. A place where you always see familiar faces, whether it be the barman who remembers your order or the old regular glued to the fruit machine, these sorts of Spanish bars are less of a hospitality establishment and more a community living room.

Sadly, these sorts of traditional bars are closing at a pretty rapid rate nowadays, and many are being replaced by chain and franchise restaurants. By the time 2021 ended, Spanish bars were closing at an average of rate of 20.7 bars a day, and roughly 2,000 pull thier shutters down for the last time every year. 

READ ALSO: Are Spain’s traditional bars in danger?

For many foreigners in Spain, however, these sorts of humble, family-run places are one of the most endearing things about living in the country.

These bars are typically very simple comprising a few stools and tables, some semi-legible laminated menus, a small number of tapas offerings, a fruit machine, a cigarette machine, and a TV. As you probably know, the basic nature of these bars means that they are often essentially the same, and you are therefore quite likely to see the same sorts of people frequenting them.

Here are ten people you always seem to see in a Spanish bar, wherever you go, at whatever time of day.

The old boy with the carajillo

In the early morning, as fellow sleepy eyed locals tuck into their tostadas, Spanish bars always seem to have an older Señor sipping quietly on a carajillo (a coffee with some kind of liquor added to it, usually cognac, rum, whisky, or aniseed).

Often there are several older men sitting a few tables apart from another, each sipping a carajillo, though some prefer to have their coffee in one glass and booze in a shot glass, but you get the idea.

Think of this as Spain’s answer to Irish coffee, except that some men in Spain seemingly drink this every morning as opposed to only on special occasions. If they’re a real regular they will arrive in the early morning with a newspaper tucked under their arm and have their carajillo brought wordlessly over to them before they’ve even made it past the front page.

It’s not uncommon to see people ordering beer or wine early in these types of bars either. 

The seasoned barman 

That brings us to our next Spanish bar archetype: the grizzled (often slightly grumpy) barman who owns the place, or if he doesn’t, behaves like he does.

You know the type: pot-bellied, greying, tea towel over his shoulder, a three-day stubbled man who could be 40 years old but could be 60 – you never can quite tell. If not behind the bar they are invariably smoking outside or arguing with the delivery driver.

At times a little brusk with non-regulars and sometimes downright rude with tourists, but always chatty with locals and children, these are the sorts of barmen who know everyone in the barrio have seen it all and always, always remember your order (if you’re a regular).

It’s not uncommon to see people dinking beer or wine in the mornings in Spain. Photo: Les Argonautes / Unsplash
 

The older Señora with perfect hair and makeup

One customer the barman will always be sure to be polite and respectful towards is the older Señora dressed to the nines with her hair freshly dyed and blow-dried hair, and makeup done immaculately at 9am. She’s often found drinking a café con leche (coffee with milk), sometimes a glass of wine, depending on the time of day, and is so well presented that she looks as though she could be stopping in before heading to a wedding, but is really just wanting an excuse to dress up. 

You can often smell her perfume from across the bar, and she is usually waiting for the rest of her friends to arrive so they can pass away the morning gossiping about everyone in the barrio (and the bar).

READ ALSO: Protect the bar to save the village, new Spanish law proposes

The man who spends all day on the tragaperras 

Most Spanish bars have tragaperras, slot or fruit machines, and there always seems to be a man (usually an older man) obsessively feeding coins into it. He can spend hours standing there zombie-like as the world goes on around him, and the trusty barman keeps an eye on his caña (small beer) and refills it without interrupting his focus.

Whatever the time of day, he always seems to be playing.

The guy smoking with one foot inside and one foot outside

Smoking indoors is illegal in Spain and has been for a long time, but in some local bars, you wouldn’t know it because of the regular who always straddles the threshold, one foot inside, one foot out on the street, blowing his cigarette smoke in a haze across the bar.

Often this guy can be found watching the man on the tragaperras, offering pieces of advice between his drags of his cigarette.

The cleaners having an after-work beer in the morning

Often friendly with the older men drinking early morning carajillos, most Spanish bars will also have two or three florescent jacket-clad rubbish collectors or road sweepers celebrating the end of their shift with an after work caña (or two) as most people are dropping in for a tostada (toast) on their way to work.

Another peculiarity of Spanish bars is that these workers usually bring tin foil-wrapped bocadillos (filled baguettes) to eat with their beers, and the usually grumpy barman says nothing about it. Rest assured, if you were to try this, you’d certainly get an earful. 

The person in charge of cutting the jamón

One item that’s never lacking in a typical Spanish bar is a leg of jamón (cured ham) either hanging from the rafters or sitting behind the bar.

Sometimes the grizzled older barman takes the responsibility of doing the meticulous slicing, but as jamón is such a serious thing in Spain, often there’s another employee whose sole responsibility seems to be to cut the jamón and nothing else.

And how seriously they take it, slicing away as though they are performing open-heart surgery.

In Spain slicing ham is a work of art. Photo: Ben Kerckx / Pixabay

The kids having breakfast on their way home from a night out

Another regular fixture among the early morning crowd is the table of teenagers or uni students having breakfast in a drunken stupor on the terrace after a long night of partying. Some will go for coffee, admitting defeat that the night is over, and others will try and power through with another caña

They are all, invariably, smoking like chimneys, and the various other regulars will exchange knowing nods of the heads and quips about being young.

Someone throwing napkins on the floor

You’ll also inevitably see someone tossing their paper napkin (along with an olive stone or cheese rind) on the floor as they eat. This is another peculiarity of Spanish bar culture, and some more traditional Spaniards might even say a bar littered with crumpled napkins is the mark of a good place.

This is another tradition that seems to be dying out, and again, if you aren’t a regular perhaps don’t try this one.

The abuela who spoils her grandchildren

When Spanish abuelas (grandmothers) aren’t gossiping away in a group, they can often be found spoiling their grandchildren and ordering endless sugary drinks, donuts, pastries and ice cream for them.

If you hang around in the bar long enough, you’ll probably see the Mum or Dad arrive and scold their mother for spoiling the kids.

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Why the Basque Country is the strike capital of Spain

Around half of all strikes in Spain take place in the Basque Country, but it wasn't always that way.

Why the Basque Country is the strike capital of Spain

Though airport workers are currently striking in Valencia and Madrid, and trade unions have played a leading role in the farmers’ protests across the country in recent weeks, there’s a specific part of Spain that stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to industrial action — the Basque Country.

According to figures from the Basque government’s Labour Relations Council (CRL), in 2023 almost half (46 percent) of the total strikes called in Spain took place in the Basque Country.

In 2022, that figure was 50.36 percent. That is to say, a region with less than 5 percent of the country’s total population had half of its strikes. More specifically, 342 of the 679 strikes that took place in Spain in 2022 were in the Basque Country alone, according to data from the Ministry of Labour.

READ ALSO: What are the pros and cons of life in Spain’s Basque Country?

What explains this phenomenon? Is there an underlying explanation? Are the Basque people particularly organised or more radical than other Spaniards?

Part of the explanation for this trend comes from the fact that Basque trade unions have grown, or maintained, at least, as union activity has declined in the rest of the country.

As Spanish trade unions slowly began waning in power and membership over the years (like in many countries around the world) the Basque Country became a hotbed of trade unionism activity and industrial action in Spain from the early-2000s. In more recent years, the 2020s in particular, the proportion of strikes in the Basque Country versus the rest of Spain has grown ever higher due to an overall decrease in the number of strikes around the rest of the country.

Jon Las Heras, Professor of Political Economy at the University of the Basque Country and expert on Basque unions, says that this high rate of strikes compared to the rest of Spain is due, above all, to the trade union model and strategy adopted by the region’s two major unions, Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna (ELA) and Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (LAB).

“ELA and LAB have formed a ‘counter-power’ bloc in opposition to CCOO and UGT [the traditional, major unions in Spain] that are more prone to engage into social dialogue,” Las Heras argues in his paper Striking to Renew: Basque Unions’ Organising Strategies and the Use of the Strike-Fund.

This strategy, he argues, is “based on organising workers ‘deeply’ – especially with ELA’s recurrent use of a strike-fund that fosters membership participation and affiliation through confederal solidarity.”

In short, whereas Spain’s larger national unions are, Las Heras suggests, more inclined to dialogue to resolve industrial disputes, Basque unions prefer more direct action. “This has produced very high strike rates since the 2000s, perhaps the highest in Europe,” he adds.

It is worth considering that the Basque Country, in addition to effectively using strike funds, is also one of the wealthiest parts of Spain. In other words, that workers in the Basque Country take home the second highest salaries in Spain on average, behind only Madrid, could mean that union members are more inclined (or have the financial flexibility) to take strike action than if they were from poorer regions such as Murcia, Extremadura and Andalusia.

READ ALSO: Why are the Basque Country and Catalonia so rich compared to the rest of Spain?

At the very least, being wealthier on average means that Basque workers can afford to stay on strike longer than workers in other parts of the country, something essential when settling disputes through industrial action.

However, trade unionists would no doubt point to their strong trade unionism as one of the reasons they are comparatively well paid, rather than the other way around.

But it wasn’t always like this. According to Las Heras, ELA, LAB and other Basque unions formerly relied on dialogue and sector-wide collective bargaining agreements, as many unions still do, but began to develop “a strategy of political autonomy and trade union action at a level closer to the grassroots” between the 1990s and the 2000s.

This came about partly as a result of changes to the labour market and industrial changes in the Basque Country (which began from the 1980s onwards, notably the types of industry and engineering in the region) as well Basque unions distancing themselves from national unions

“The rise of the second Basque union (LAB) allowed for the two Basque sovereigntist unions to form a new alliance that stood in opposition to the two main Spanish unions,” Las Herras argues.

But it’s also about strategy. Elena Pérez Barredo, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Security in the Basque government, told La Vanguardia that the fundamental reason strikes are so common “lies in the trade union difference that exists in the Basque Country.”

“The ELA has a union strategy and culture that encourages confrontation… a very marked strategy in favour of the strike as an instrument of confrontation,” she adds.

There seem to be several plausible, inter-connected reasons that the Basque Country became Spain’s (and possibly Europe’s) strike capital.

It has strong regional trade unions that exist separately from the larger confederate national unions; these unions have effective strike funds, meaning they can strike for longer; their employees are, on average, likely to be better paid than elsewhere in Spain, meaning they could be more inclined and financially able to take strike action; and finally, Basque unions take a more direct, confrontational approach to industrial disputes, whereas other unions rely more on dialogue and border collective bargaining agreements.

Perhaps Unai Rementeria, a local Basque politician, summed it up best after widespread strike action in the region in 2019. Basque unions, he said simply, “seek permanent confrontation.”

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