Foto of the Week — La Coruña Closed for Good

Anyone who has been through the heart of San Telmo the last couple of months may have noticed that a place normally full of activity, is shuttered up. The latest casualty of the gentrifying neighborhood is La Coruña Bar at Bolivar 994 (corner of Carlos Calvo).

The bar, with its large windows spanning Bolivar in the corner of the San Telmo market has been empty since it closed in March. Like other long-time San Telmo bars, such as El Británico, it remained a popular meeting place, despite the fact that there was no wifi, no modern hygienic standards and only the most basic Argentine dishes on the menu.

La Coruña was one of 73 bars declared a ‘notable bar’ by the city’s culture department, along with Cafe Tortoni, Las Violetas, the nearby Café La Poesia, Bar Seddon and the aforementioned Bar Británico.

While those bars have been revamped, the passage of time at La Coruña seemed to have no effect aside from the accumulation of dust around the bar.

The bar was opened in 1961 by a Spanish couple, Manuela López and José Moreira. After Moriera’s death a few years ago, Lopéz continued running it on her own until closing with zero fanfare.

For those who knew Lopéz, she can still sometimes be found visiting and helping out at the nearly identical bar next door, Pedro Telmo. And those who never got to visit the old-timey classic Buenos Aires bar, it can be seen in the awarding winning Sergio Renán film, El sueño de los héroes.

Las del Barco: A Colorful Culture Bar in San Telmo

Editor’s Note: this bar is now closed. Check out La Poesia across the street, or Gibraltar a couple of blocks away.

Las del Barco is a buoyant addition to an otherwise dark and sleepy block of ‘San Telmo Brooklyn.’ The little storefront bar could easily be passed by without a glance if it weren’t for the colorful lights in the window proudly announcing its presence.

Las de Barco aims to deliver more than the usual alcohol-drenched haze with afternoon film showings, live theater and music and art workshops.

Two attractive and scholarly sisters from Paraná province, María Eugenia and Virginia del Barco —‘the diplomat and the doctor,’ co-own the bar.

Virginia recently completed her studies for an M.D. at the University of Buenos Aires and will soon be doing her residency. María Eugenia has a degree in international relations.

The little bar is a neighborhood watering hole for Argentine artists, neighborhood drag queens and international students from the nearby Universidad de Cine who come to take advantage of drink specials. Once and a while a group swings by to smoke the house hookah on the tiny back patio.

“We want to have clients that come to enjoy the space,” says Virginia. “I guess our target customer base would be people in their 30’s and 40’s. It’s a bit more laid-back here for, say, an 18 year-old. We’d also like it to be a place where everyone knows one another — Argentines and foreigners. We want it to be homegrown.”

The Buenos Aires Pub Crawl stops here, but the del Barco sisters assure their regular customers that the gringo invasion is relegated to the normally slow Monday nights. Happy hour runs from 6—11 p.m. every night and includes specials two-for-one specials on drinks and pints.

Las del Barco Menu and Music

Las del Barco offers up a modest menu featuring fresh sandwiches, soup of the day, nachos, and picadas.

WA-Babars-lasdelbarco3 — A young American enjoys a hookah

Depending on who is in control of the music, there is usually a decent selection of hits from the last few decades, although a few employees could modernize their tastes. Las del Barco may not be the night owl’s ultimate destination but it’s convivial stop for a few reasonably priced drinks to get the evening warmed up.

Las del Barco—$/$$
Bolívar 684
San Telmo
Tel: 4331-3004

• Hours: Mon-Wed: 6pm-23am
Thur: 6pm-4am
Fri: 6pm-5am
Sat: 8pm-5pm
Sun: 11am—8pm

• cash only

Porteño Corner: Tomas Pytel, Krakow Bar Owner

Tomas Pytel
Owner/bartender— Krakow Bar
Age: 34
San Telmo

Q: Where are you originally from?

I grew up in Krakow until I was eight and then we moved to New York City. I also lived in Texas, Michigan and the last place I lived in the states was San Francisco.

• How long have you been in Buenos Aires?

For about eight years.

• How did you end up in here?

I had been traveling for a year from Mexico and I was tired, and I met a girl so I stuck around for a while, then I left and came back, left and came back. Since I kept coming back I figured I’d stay, because I did get to like it here.

• You traveled overland from Mexico?

Yes, in bus, via alpaca, donkey, hiking — you name it. There was also one boat involved and one airplane — from Panama to Colombia.

• What do you like about Argentina?

Here they say that in Europe and the states they live to work, while here you work to live — it’s a little more human. People are more friendly and down-to-earth; they’re not so uptight and competitive.

• You get every nationality under the sun in here. Who holds their drink the worst out of all the nationalities?

That would have to be the Argentines. They’re not used to spirits. You get two or three shots in them and they’re on the floor. Except for Fernet, they can drink that like water.

• Is it true what the Argentines say, that Fernet doesn’t give you a hangover?

Fernet has 43% alcohol but if you stick to drinking to Fernet all night, you’ll do better than if you drink whiskey, say.

• And who holds their drink the best out of all the nationalities?

That would have to be between the Irish and the Polish.

• What’s the crazy thing that’s ever happened in Krakow while you were manning the bar?

Once we had eight girls dancing on the bar simultaneously. It was just a spontaneous thing.

• How would you describe the clientele at Krakow?

Sometimes we get packed with tourists, we have local businessmen, foreigners that live here, people who come from Palermo — we get everyone here.

• When did you open the bar and how is business now?

We opened on December 1st, 2008. It’s going pretty good now. The first half of this year was pretty rough with swine flu and the global economic crash but it’s pretty steady now. We can’t complain because a lot of other businesses have closed.

• Was it a pain to get the business license and get everything going?

Yup.

• It seems like you guys are pretty popular now, was the success immediate?

For the first six months it was pretty rough because it takes a while for people to know about you via word of mouth, but we survived those six months and now it’s okay.

• Running a bar in San Telmo you must meet all sorts of people, lots of women and have all sorts of sordid tales, how do you keep on top of it?

When we started it was pretty crazy but now we just try to work and not get carried away with stuff. At first it was a party — now we have a business to run.