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Why do some bars in Spain want you to throw serviettes on the floor?

You’ve probably been to a bar in Spain where you have some tapas or pintxos whilst standing up, you look down and see a mountain of used paper napkins. It may seem messy to tourists, but it’s a tradition with meaning. 

spain serviettes bar
It's often the traditional family-run bars where the decor hasn't changed in decades and the tapas have been famous for even longer where serviettes are thrown on the floor. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

All across Spain there are humble, family-run bars where for decades waiters have been dishing out the same famed tapas like clockwork and at lightning speed.

Some bars or taverns may specialise in one particular dish or pintxo, or offer the grub for free with customers’ drinks, all of which adds to the popularity and chaos of the establishment. 

What happens in some bars is that there’s an unwritten rule whereby the paper napkins that customers use to clean their hands and mouths after tucking into a piece of greasy ibérico ham or brine-dripping olives are simply chucked on the ground.

The pile of used serviettes quickly piles up, in part because the thin paper napkins that are traditionally used across eateries in Spain are notoriously useless at absorbing or cleaning, meaning that people get through a stack of them in one sitting. 

Food-loving foreigners in cities such as San Sebastián or Madrid are often surprised to see the mix of servilletas, bits of food, sugar sachets and toothpicks mounting up around customers’ feet, whilst locals carry on eating and chatting without giving it a second’s notice. 

Every little while when the mess gets out of hand, one of the waiters will come with a broom and dustpan to scoop up all the serviettes, although in some cases bars have fitted a section along the base of the bar where customers can drop the napkins into, almost like a dustbin. 

“Napkins on the floor are a sign that we offer a good service,” Kino Martínez, head of Gipuzkoa Hotel and Catering Association told his local daily Noticias de Gipuzkoa.

“If there weren’t any, it would be a bad sign,” he concluded, adding that serviette littering is traditional in many bars in Spain’s northern Basque Country. 

This is generally the rule of thumb for locals, and consequently for foreigners on the lookout for hidden gems: if there’s a pile of crumpled up serviettes adorning the floor, it means the place is popular, probably because the food is good and/or cheap.

In the video below, titled ” a good bar has serviettes on the ground”, Youtuber Miquel Serrano argues that he hasn’t been able to resolve the mystery of why Spaniards litter in bars but keep their homes so clean, but that this dirtiness gives the bar “essence”, “happiness” and “makes it a Spanish bar and not a German one”.

It’s worth stressing that not every bar, restaurant or tasca in Spain embraces this habit; it’s a rather old-school custom that you’ll spot at bars that have been around for decades (if not centuries) and not something to be done at flash new restaurants.

In fact, over the past decade a number of municipal bylaws have sought to end the somewhat dirty custom in some parts of the country. 

In 2022, the town hall of Almería in southern Spain announced it would fine bar owners who didn’t keep their floors clean between €120 and €750, with smaller penalties for customers who failed to put paper napkins in the bin. 

Similar rules were brought out in Bilbao in 2014, with even a catchy rhyme used for the campaign to encourage the public to throw their serviettes in the allocated bins (encesta que no cuesta, something like ‘put it in the net, you won’t fret’).

“Now we sweep; if we got trash cans, they would also have to be emptied. It would mean the same work for us,” Iñaki Zelaia, manager of San Sebastián’s Bartolo bar-restaurant, said at the time. 

“We sometimes tell tourists that if you like the pintxo, throw the napkin on the floor; if not, leave it on the plate. 

“And that’s why there are so many paper serviettes on the floor”.

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COST OF LIVING

Spain to eliminate tax on olive oil to ease price jump

Spain's leftist government said Friday it will remove the value-added tax on olive oil, a staple of Spanish cuisine which has soared in price due to a severe drought that has caused a sharp drop in the country's olive harvest.

Spain to eliminate tax on olive oil to ease price jump

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government will from July “permanently” include olive oil in the list of “basic necessities” which are exempt from the tax, the budget ministry said in a statement.

This is “wonderful news for all Spaniards,” government spokeswoman Pilar Alegria said during an interview with private television station Antena 3.

The measure which will be approved at a weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday will “ease the burden on Spaniards’ wallets” as well as “support the olive sector and stimulate consumption of a product that is so important for our country,” she added.

Supermarkets have reported a spike in thefts of olive oil bottles since their price has soared, prompting some retailers to fit them with security tags normally seen on pricey items like alcohol while sales of cheaper alternatives such as sunflower seed oil have increased.

Basic necessities such as bread, fruits and vegetables usually carry a reduced VAT rate of 4.0 percent but during times of high inflation as is currently the case the rate is reduced to zero.

The government already lowered the VAT rate slapped on olive oil to 5.0 percent from 10 percent in 2023 to help fight rising food prices but that has not stopped its price from continuing to rise.

Spain, which supplies almost half of the world’s olive oil, is along with Greece the globe’s leading consumer of the product, with each person consuming nearly 14 litres per year, according to the International Olive Oil Council.

The cost of olive oil in Spain in May was 63 percent higher than during the same month last year, and three times more expensive than in January 2021.

The sharp rise is due to a drop in production in Spain during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons as a result of a series of extreme heat waves and a lack of rainfall in the country, especially in the southern region of Andalusia, the main olive producing region.

During the 2022-23 season, Spain produced 660,000 tonnes of olives, down from 1.48 million tonnes during the 2021-22 season. The agriculture ministry predicts production will not exceed 850,000 tonnes in 2023-24.

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