For decades, Plaza Reial and its surroundings were a first-class cultural hub, perhaps the most powerful Barcelona has ever had. with permission at most from the Paral·lel prior to the Civil War. Not anymore. A luxury five-star hotel from the Sonder chain and restaurants from the Tragaluz (Tomate), La Pomada (Glaciar), Andilana (Les Quinze Nits), MariscCo (MariscCo) and Degusplus (Rossini) groups dominate the Reial. True, the Ambos Mundos and the Tobogán, renamed La Gallega de la Plaza Real, are still in family hands, and the Ocaña plays the card of evoking the bohemian past of the enclave. Few Barcelonans frequent both. In the surrounding area, in addition to tourist restaurants, there are also tourist bars and souvenir, convenience and cannabis stores. It wasn’t always like this.
The flamenco tavern The Charco de la Pava (Escudellers, 5) operated between 1947 and 1961. Antonio González ‘El Legañas’ and Antonio González ‘El Pescaílla’, father and son, performed there. It is said that ‘the fan’ could have been born in that place. In any case, sacred place of Catalan rumba. They were very close Matias House (Nou de Sant Francesc, 6) and The Macarena (Nou de Sant Francesc, 5), Flemish temples opened in 1940 and 1941, respectively. At the hostess bar Stepin Escudellers, Los Amaya were forged in the 60s.
The Sixth Fleet
The United States Sixth Fleet began docking in Barcelona in 1951. With the American sailors, many things arrived in the Catalan capital, all of them susceptible to being analyzed in a colonial key. On another occasion. For our purposes, bars with music (and women), ‘boîtes’ and ‘night clubs’ emerged. One of those bad looking joints, the Toast (Plaza Reial, 17), became the jazz cellar Jamboree in 1960 after observing its owner that at Slide, just opposite, was not doing badly at all as the venue for the Jubilee Jazz Club sessions. He Kit Kat (Escudellers,10), with an environment called Stereo Club dedicated to jazz and another in a ‘night club’ format where anything went; he Zodiac and the Montparnasse (both in the Madoz passage) joined a full-fledged jazz microworld. The disco Jazz Columbus It was a late addition.
Hairy and punks
Minotauro and Glaciar, both locations in La Reial, were hairy meccas in the 1970s. The painter José Pérez Ocaña, alone Ocaña for the remains, he began to live in the plaza, number 12, in 1973. Karma It opened in 1978 and held concerts until safety regulations forced the stage to be removed to make way for an emergency exit. He Texas, a remnant of the Sixth Fleet era, was recycled in 1980 by Xavi Cot as a refuge for Barcelona’s first punks. At least Último Resorte, 1984 and Clinic Humanoyds performed. On November 13, 1982 it became Sidecar.
The 80s were years of glory for La Real and its surroundings. Although it was a really dodgy area because of the heroin epidemic. From port to mountain: the Fantastic, in Nou de Sant Francesc, was a punk hotbed; almost door to door, the Camel It welcomed more senior staff and people from the neighborhood; he Bogie (Vidre, 7) concentrated the heavy parish. In La Reial, the aforementioned Karma and Sidecar, a modern dive in a gallows environment. And higher up, in Rauric, the Kikeoutdated ‘protoqueer’ bar, or simply faggot, in which Nazario and company did a thousand and one, all good. He passed through Kike Marc Almond and in the Kike he left lost graffiti Keith Haring. Nazario’s Anarcoma comics reflect that environment, of which EA3 was also a part.
We will not mythologize the 80s in La Reial. As one source says: “There were a hundred manguis for every guiri; now it’s the other way around.”
‘Indie’ impulse
In the 90s, the Misstep And between the 90s and 2000s, all that substratum of bad life gained new ‘indie’ momentum. With the New York, where El Charco de la Pava and the New York had previously been, the scene of the show by Peki d’Oslo, later known as Amanda Lear. With the Tequilaalso in Escudellers, now a 365 bakery. With the Fonfone (Escudellers passage, 24), from which the Nasty Mondays.
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Cultural reasons to currently go to Plaza Reial and its surroundings are the Sidecar (we’ll see), the Jamboree (reopened in 1992) and the Marula Café (Escudellers, 49).
This urgent memory is limited to the Gothic. If we crossed the Rambla and entered the Raval, things would get out of hand: from La Criolla to the Moog.