Ana del Barrio Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, January 22, 2024-00:15

  • Urbanism This was the reform of the Plaza de España

The most mysterious

bunker

in all of Madrid now has an owner.

Last December, the City Council awarded

the tender for this cafeteria

to the Casa Remigio group , located in one of the most emblematic locations in the city: the Plaza de España.

Its

strange whale shape

had aroused the curiosity of neighbors and tourists, who wondered what that green building was and what it was going to do.

The property was built with the renovation of the square in 2021 and had been unused for two years.

Finally, the mystery has been resolved and it will be Casa Remigio who manages the so-called

Café de Cervantes

, which has been able to visit GRAN MADRID exclusively.

The interior of the green whale is an open space of 250 square meters with large windows on the sides and skylights on the ceiling to let in natural light.

The

bunker

looks leaky, since remodeling work has not yet begun.

The Casa Remigio restaurant will be installed here, which will have

two terraces of 100 meters each

outside: one will be outdoors and the other will remain covered with a light construction.

Ramos, director of Casa Remigio, inside the 'whale'.AN

This restaurant group - specialized in administrative concessions of kiosks - won a disputed municipal competition, in which the large hospitality companies of Madrid competed:

the Larrumba group, Sandó Restauración, la Maquina, Lamucca Holding, the Azotea group, the Allard group, with Martín Berasategui, and Forter Unicorp

, which manages the Christmas events and the summer cinema in the Plaza de España.

All of them wanted to get hold of this diamond in the rough, which the City Council intends to turn into an icon of the city.

For this reason, the tender specifications - which were published in March 2023 -

have been extremely detailed

and numerous obstacles had to be overcome to achieve it.

The City Council argues that the winning proposal was the one that obtained the best score in terms of the

quality criterion of the offer

with 45.6 points out of 49, ahead of the other seven companies that were presented.

For the next 25 years, the Casa Remigio Group will run the kiosk for which it will have to make an

investment of one million or one and a half million euros

.

Its estimated sales will be 1,250,000 euros per year and it will obtain a profitability of 8%, for which it will pay an annual fee to the City Council of 204,000 euros.

A popular kiosk

The idea of ​​the group's director, Juan Ramos, is to create a popular kiosk

accessible to all audiences

, far from the elitist terraces that are located in Puerta de Alcalá.

«We want Café de Cervantes to be

a letter of introduction for visitors to Madrid

.

We intend for it to become a popular terrace for everyone, where two residents of Amaniel Street can sit to have a coffee and two tourists staying in luxury hotels can sit and drink an expensive wine," explains Ramos in statements to GRAN MADRID.

Once the City Council has awarded the kiosk, Casa Remigio has two months

to present the execution project

to the Municipal Board of Moncloa-Aravaca, which, in turn, must send it to the Local Historical Heritage Commission .

When this body grants approval, the City Council will grant the construction license so that the group can start remodeling the bunker as soon as possible.

Ramos estimates that

the renovation work will last about six months

, so it is expected that Café de Cervantes will be able to open its doors in the fall.

Without a doubt, the most emblematic part of the kiosk will be the roof,

where an authentic orchard will be planted

with numerous plants such as ivy, jasmine or wisteria, all of them resistant to the cold and that do not need much water to survive.

The garden represents an investment of 260,000 euros and will also entail an annual maintenance cost of 12,000 euros.

A menu with nods to Madrid

The Café de Cervantes will enjoy a

great diversity of gastronomic offerings

with seasonal menus, which will vary depending on the season, as well as vegan, vegetarian and menus for people with food intolerances, a factor that was valued when it came to winning. points in the contest.

The bar will also give a nod to Madrid with typical foods such as gildas,

squid sandwiches

, potato omelette, bravas, as well as a cocktail menu and a vermouth menu, a drink that is increasingly popular among the public.

The idea is to open from 8:00 in the morning until 2:00 in the morning and offer breakfast, appetizers, lunches, snacks and dinners for all audiences.

To do this, Casa Remigio has been training its team for weeks so that

the kitchens work very quickly

and that there is a lot of turnover.

In addition, the premises will have a careful decoration with

a ceiling covered with wooden slats

, while the tiling will have a marble coating.

Recreation of how the terrace will look.

The outdoor furniture will play with materials such as wicker and rattan and Juan Ramos also intends to recover

the traditional marble tables.

The café will also preserve a cultural space, where

there will be a free book loan service

in Spanish with a special mention for the works of Cervantes.

The history of Casa Remigio

Casa Remigio began its journey in 1996 with

a tavern with only six tables

and three employees on Modesto Lafuente Street.

The establishment became very popular with its three star dishes: ostrich egg, kangaroo meat and broken eggs with León blood sausage.

After the success of this small tavern, the expansion of the business began with new establishments such as El Gandul, Retinto and Casa Patillas, all of them located in the Chamberí neighborhood.

In 2012, the group changed its line of business by beginning to manage

Café del Río, in Madrid Río.

In this way, Casa Remigio specialized

in running administrative concessions kiosks

, where you can enjoy a good gastronomic offer in the middle of nature.

Currently, the company operates

six kiosks in Madrid Río

;

the Café del Lago in the Casa de Campo;

that of La Paloma in the Dehesa de la Villa;

el Gallo in Pradolongo park and Puerta de Alcalá in Retiro, as well as seven other beach bars in Cádiz.

Mayte Commodore also ran the space for a year until it was sold to the Trocadero group.

His next challenge will be Café Cervantes, which represents

a qualitative leap in his career

.

«It is another league and it involves a lot of responsibility.

We are not just talking about the image of Casa Remigio, but that of the Madrid hospitality industry and that of the entire city," concludes Ramos.