Café Comercial: Coffee, Chess and Tertulias since 1887
Why is it significant?
Take a look through the tall windows of the Café Comercial: marble-topped tables, mirrors, dark wood, waiters in a hurry and people who are clearly in no hurry at all. It has stood on this corner of the Glorieta de Bilbao since 1887, which makes it one of the oldest cafés in Madrid.
Key Facts
| Place | Café Comercial: Coffee, Chess and Tertulias since 1887 |
|---|---|
| Address | Glorieta de Bilbao 7, 28004 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.42870, -3.70200 |
| Part of Walk | From the Dos de Mayo to La Movida: Malasaña & Chueca, Madrid's Rebel Quarters |
| Generated | Generated |
Take a look through the tall windows of the Café Comercial: marble-topped tables, mirrors, dark wood, waiters in a hurry and people who are clearly in no hurry at all. It has stood on this corner of the Glorieta de Bilbao since 1887, which makes it one of the oldest cafés in Madrid.
To understand why it matters, you need to understand the tertulia. In nineteenth and early twentieth century Madrid, flats were small, dark and cold, and the café was everybody's living room. A tertulia was a group of regulars who met at the same table, at the same hour, every day or every week, to argue about literature, politics, bullfighting and each other. A single coffee could buy a whole afternoon, and more than one novel, magazine and political career was born at a café table in this city.
Upstairs, for decades, there was a quieter kind of battle. The Comercial was famous for its chess players, who would sit for hours over the boards while the noise of the glorieta rolled on below them. Many cafés of that era also had a pianist or a small band, and music, conversation and the clatter of cups were the soundtrack of Madrid's evenings.
In 2015 the café suddenly closed, and Madrid reacted almost as if a relative had died. Writers, regulars and neighbours protested, and the loss was front-page news. In 2017 it reopened after a careful restoration, keeping its long room and its atmosphere, and the tables filled up again as if nothing had happened.
Think of it as the older brother of all the bars you have walked past. The Movida kids of 1980 did not invent the idea of meeting friends every night in the same place to change the world; they just turned the volume up. Now walk south down Calle de Fuencarral for a few minutes, to the most extravagant doorway in Madrid.