Back the ‘bar de viejes’ – Lawmakers back call to fill Buenos Aires’ old-style bars

In one of Buenos Aires’ old-style ‘bar de viejes,’ there’s no need to go in company – you can always chat to the waiter or to the people on the next table, even if they’re fans of other teams or vote differently to you.

In these bars, you will have your table – though it can be true that at certain moments and for some strange reason, it might be occupied by some interloper. In any event, it remains your table.

In these bars, you can stay informed with newspapers, which circulate from table to table – in general. there’s always a Clarín or a Crónica, though not normally a La Nación.

In these bars, it is not necessary to explain to the waiter how strong you want your coffee – you enter, say hello and within minutes it’s on your table without need to ask.

In these bars, you can even install your office – notebooks and laptops justify their existence only because they can be transferred to a bar where you can work while dipping a croissant into your café au lait. Such is the “bar office,” a tradition which functioned even before the pandemic.

In a bar de viejes, they trust you – nobody doubts that you’ll be paying for that toast and soft drink you’ve just had for lunch as soon as you can.

In these bars, you are much more than your name inscribed on a plastic glass or paper cup. 

Resistance 

Martina Alfuso, 36, launched her 'Bar de Viejes' project six years ago. It was aimed at recovering the custom of attending bars, whether notable or not. 

The project does not wallow in any melancholy nostalgia for the good old times of tango poet Enrique Santos Discépolo and nor is it a gastronomic or touristic guide. On the contrary, it aims at mobilising a countercultural attitude.

Martina explains it thus: “In a society requiring something to be produced immediately, the bar represents a space and time with zero productivity or results, where nobody seeks to earn anything. Something antagonistic to the take-away. An anti-capitalistic logic.”

A bar is where you can chat to a friend, mark time, get to know somebody, grab a snack and run on, think things out, let off steam with an office colleague, propose a date. With no agenda or algorithm. The bar, as an analogue sphere. 

“Bars have a democratic value, like some kind of public school. They form and house diversity. We are all different but live together in the same space and with the same rank. That is an essential quality of bars which should be salvaged,” continues Martina.

Project

Alfuso’s Bar de Viejes campaign has an Instagram account with 50,000 followers, a fortnightly newsletter, a web page. It also stages a series of monthly encounters dubbed “Bar Abierto” at different porteño cafés. 

The website (bardeviejes.com.ar) offers an interactive map with useful information on 67 bars. The fortnightly newsletter carries plenty of content: a  look at history of a bar and its owners, suggestions of reading matter and music for the occasion. And every ‘Bar Abierto’ event is a synthesis of them all – the community meets up to get to know each other, listen to some live music or a poetry recital, have a drink, admire a photo display and have a nice time.

Alfuso’s says most of her account’s followers are women, 70 percent of whom are aged between 25 and 35. That might seem curious, given the idea that for decades the old bars were almost exclusively male bastions. 

“I believe I communicate something else about those places, I have a different sensitivity to narrate all that which is transfixed by my own history of a woman who has been a bar-hopper for 20 years,” said Martina.

Last week, deputies from the Buenos Aires City Legislature declared the project to be of cultural interest. 

City lawmaker Matías Barroetaveña, the author of the declaration, said the decision was a move to “send messages, to be able to point out what the people of the City of Buenos Aires value, in relation to the type of community and society we want to build," while highlighting the importance of bars in shaping the capital.
 

Another show

Entering a bar is submission to a ritual. Always the same table, the same waiter, the same coffee. That moment, defines Martina, is like a repeat theatre performance.

“The curtain goes up, the lights go on and we all do the same as always. That calms you down and gives you peace, knowing that there is a place in the world where things always work the same safeguards you from chaos,” she said.

It’s interesting that idea – the bar as the scenario to which the actors climb up for a routine which is repeated every show. A scenario where the vertigo stays out on the pavement with all screens relegated and where only a murmur is heard, barely interrupted by some yelling from a back table.

Waiter? Another round.