Terraces with prior reservation | Madrid

The long-awaited phase 1 arrives and, with it, the terraces at 50% of their capacity. The Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, had not even finished his appearance on Friday when the bar phones were already ringing. “Do you already reserve for the terrace?” Asked a woman on the phone to the manager of Cascorro Bistrot, Carlos Campillo. Of its six tables in the Plaza del Cascorro, you can only put three. “I have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all full and not even 24 hours have passed,” he said this Saturday. His is one of the 5,323 authorized terraces in Madrid.

“We can finally stop pretending that we are all runners and we can go back to drinking on the terraces ”, says Daniela Cuesta, 24, who has a reservation this Monday on the roof of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, with some of the best views in the city. “We have a permitted capacity of 50%, 200 people, but we are going to start with fewer people first and we are seeing how security measures are respected,” says a spokeswoman for the Círculo de Bellas Artes. On the restaurant terrace, you have full reservations for lunch and dinner until Sunday.

At street level, the owner of La posada del Nuncio, Javier Sánchez, is nervous and excited. “I have created a special letter for phase 1 and I already have the entire terrace full at the time of the walks,” he says. Like him, in these two months many hoteliers have had to reinvent themselves. “We had never offered food at home, but three weeks ago we made the decision to do so because we couldn’t take it anymore without working,” he says. “To see my clients having a drink on my terrace again, I care much more now than the profitability of the business”, Sánchez acknowledges.

Pablo Migliore, partner at Mamua Café, agrees on this. “To see if it is profitable, I prefer to open it and check it and not stay doing numbers in my head,” says this hotelier, who has been on the Rastro for three years. Both trust that they will not be short of customers, but they will be able to serve tables to cater to all the thirsty walkers. “This is going to be a war on the terrace,” Migliore jokes.

Although the tables are full, the Lavapiés hospitality restaurant gives up the summer as lost. “The vast majority of our hoteliers do not find it profitable to open in the de-escalation due to capacity limits,” says María Esteban, president of the Lavapiés Merchants Association. Only seven of 134 establishments (just 5%) will take their terrace to the street today. More than 80% of the bars and restaurants of its merchants association will not open until after June 30, if they do. “Only 25% have a terrace, with an average capacity of five tables for about 20 people,” says Mercedes Saracho, manager of the association. “Most only have a bar and a few tables inside. We calculate that 50% can definitively shut down, ”he adds.

“The proposed capacity is incompatible with the opening, we are focused on a massive closure”, explains Antonio Amago, owner of La Musa de Espronceda.

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