Spain’s small-town bars get a boost with proposed subsidies

In the small, northeastern village of Lledó, population 120, there’s just one bar. Marlí Mora, the owner, said it’s hard to get by during the winter. 

“Especially during the long winters here, without tourists,” she said from behind the counter. “During those months, I lose money.”

In Spain, the small-town bar is cherished as the heart of a community, where locals go to drink, eat and share gossip. 

But as more people decamp for the cities, many small bars like the one in Lledó are in need of help. A political party representing rural Spain has an idea: subsidize village watering holes with tax money. 

Mora and other small-bar owners love the idea of subsidies and tax breaks.  

This is a story about survival — for bars, but more importantly, for Spain’s tiny villages. Studies suggest the two are inextricable: When small-town bars go under, so do the hamlets that host them.  

Customers Juan Robert and his buddy Javier Martinez sat on the deck at Mora’s bar, drinking beers at sunset. 

“In villages like this,” Robert laughed, “people meet up either in the local store, the church or the bar.”

Without that human contact, he said, a village will die.

Spain’s proposed law would help keep the drinks flowing in towns with less than 200 residents. It’s the brainchild of a small political party called Teruel Exists. The name’s a nod to a tourist slogan the region used years ago to attract visitors. Think of it like a desperate version of  “I love NY.”

“I’d move away if there were no bar,” said Augusto Teruel, a local forester who was on his way out of the bar.

“This place is crucial,” he said. “You get up in the morning, have your coffee, chat with folks.”

Mora added that they also have a community room in the back. “We do movie nights for kids or host storytellers. We plan the town holidays here,” she said. 

Even the town’s political parties meet there, she said, to strategize their campaigns.

Culture, politics, food and drink — small-town bars offer it all. But to truly understand just how central bars like these are to rural life, it helps to visit a town where the bar has closed.

In the village of Darmós, about two hours from Lledó, a handful of residents loitered on the flagstone square on a recent afternoon. 

The town bar was shuttered, but not permanently, local resident Enric Valles said. 

“A bar in a place like this can’t survive,” Valles said. “There aren’t enough customers. That’s why it hasn’t opened yet today.” 

Valles and the others aren’t out here waiting for happy hour but for bread. 

Darmós has no bakery, not even a store. But a woman in a small utility vehicle trundles in each day and hands out pre-ordered loaves. 

After deliveries, Valles said, they’d normally hit the bar for a Vermouth. 

Instead, he was heading home.

“Where can we get together?” he said, “In the middle of the street?”

Urbanites might be tempted to write off these small towns and let them die out. But they matter for farming and keeping Spain’s forests clean and free of wildfires. When people live out here, they tend to the woods. 

Back in Lledó, residents went months without a gathering place before Marlí Mora showed up. The previous owners had declared bankruptcy.

Patron Juan Robert remembered those dark days with a smile. “We would come down here with our own coolers of beers, lanterns and gas heaters,” he said. 

“We kept the party going. It was comical,” Robert laughed, even if he and his neighbors were worried. 

But Spain’s village bar law is sailing through parliament with politicians from the left, right and center all ready to raise their glasses in favor.