Scheduled Coffee: In a Barcelona coffee, if you want to be more than an hour drinking the same coffee, you have to pay 4 euros. Why does a coffee in Spain more expensive according to the time the customer occupies the table? It’s cool, but…
Drinking a coffee calmly or working with the laptop in a bar for hours is becoming complicated in Spanish cities like or.
Some establishments are limiting the time that customers can occupy a table and the price of a coffee can even doubledepending on the time the person is sitting.
A bar in Barcelona, located in one of the most touristy zones in the city and near the beach, informs customers that a coffee on the terrace costs 1.30 euros, but If the time for consuming to exceed 30 minutes, the price rises to 2.50 euros. And if the person wants to spend more than an hour in the Caffè Perfectto to taste the same drink and occupy a table, you will have to pay 4 euros.
The publication that showed the photograph of these rules became viral in the country. There are those who agree and who criticizes the norm imposed by the cafeteria.
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In Barceloneta if you want a coffee you have to take it in less than 30 minutes.
– Maria (@maria_ostia)
“Time -based payment is the same principle as parking parks, applied to restaurants,” defends one user. Another user considers the situation absurd and questions whether the establishment is not ashamed to implement such a measure.
The bar owner defends himself and explains why he made that decision.
“I decided to put this warning on the tables to raise awareness. A person can’t spend long without consuming, otherwise the business is not profitable,” Massimo said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper Diario.es.
Maria Moreno Albiol, author of the controversial publication, told BBC News that Barcelona is undergoing a gentrification and touristification process, with effects like this. “We are, the residents and workers of the neighborhood, who suffer the consequences. ” The Spaniard reveals that she used to attend this cafeteria when she was a normal bar.
“Since now most of the Barceloneta establishments have become monsters for tourists, I no longer return to this bar. Not only for the price of coffee, but because many of them are no longer accessible to neighborhood workers. Prices are exorbitant, such as those in the city’s housing,” he laments.
Madrid and the laptops
For now, in Madrid the situation is not yet so extreme, but in more tourist neighborhoods there are several establishments that Limit the time to stay to tables for customers who use laptop computers.
In the Lavapiés neighborhood, a cafeteria has put a small warning to report that the tables can be used with portable for two hours, but only from Monday to Friday. On weekends, it is forbidden to sit with a computer.
“We limit because we receive a lot of people and, if someone is sitting hours, we lose customers. If the place is full and there are people waiting, unfortunately I have to ask those who have been releasing the table for a long time, if not consuming,” explains one of the cafe employees, who prefers to keep anonymity.
According to the organization of consumers and users of Catalonia (occupa), the practice of defining a maximum time of permanence or minimum consumption at tables It is legal, provided that this limitation is informed Before the customer sit down and the warning is visible.
In the Callao zone, in one of the best known terraces of the capital, a warning glued behind the counter of a cafeteria reports that the use of laptops at the tables is prohibited.
“A coffee here costs three euros. If a person spends two hours sitting and just consuming a coffee, how much do we earn a day? We do not prohibit rigidly as long as people do not abuse. Remote work is well regarded by companies, who do not need to pay office income to their employees, but restaurants and bars have to survive,” says the cafeteria manager.
Although the trend of cafes with timed time is gaining strength in Spain, the concept is not exactly new. In MoscowCoffee Ziferblat has been adopting this model for 12 years: customers have not paid for drinks or space use, but for the time passed inside: 3.5 rubles per minute.
Second most popular destination in the world
Spain broke his record of visitors last year, receiving almost 94 million foreign tourists.
By 2025, the numbers continue to rise: In the first quarter of this year, the country received another 5.7% of visitors than in the first three months of 2024, according to the National Institute of Spanish Statistics. The Iberian country is the second most visited destination in the world, behind only France.
Jorge R. Fernández, owner of the Catalan Sifo restaurant, comprises the behavior of some establishments that charge more for the time of use of the tables.
“This is happening in some places that suffer from the Mass Tourismthe largest scourge of big cities today. I do not see it as an isolated case, it is part of a set of decisions that the market eventually adopted due to the large flow of tourists, ”he explains.
