Social Enterprise Cafes
It’s rewarding to find hidden cafes slightly off the tourist trail. If they have a solid link to the community that benefits from your euros, so much the better.
Mescladis de Pou is a courtyard oasis in the Born district. With an eclectic, beatnik kind of feel (like a Budapest Ruin Bar) serving organic fairtrade meals, as well as coffee and drinks.
It’s the flagship project of the Mescladis enterprise, founded to support local cohesion (Mesclar is “to mix” in Catalan), and the centre of their Cuinant Oportunitas programme (literally “cooking up opportunities”) which offers training, education and employment to those at risk of exclusion.
If you’re in St Pere, in the vicinity of the Palau de la Musica Catalana, and you should certainly make it your business to be, search out a drink in the Antic Theatre (tho closed - for renovation? - when last visited in Nov 23). Housed in a seventeenth century building in an unremarkable street, head up the stairs to find yourself in a world of arty students drinking cheap beer in a secret garden. The bar is the main source of income for the intimate theatre and cultural centre.
For an informal cafeteria-style lunch, with an outside space especially good with kids, try Norai Raval in the Maritime Museum at the bottom of the Ramblas. It’s run by a coop who train disadvantaged people from the Raval and offers a good value three-course menu on weekdays.
Of course in the current climate, all cafes need your money. Great independents are everywhere. Use use use them or lose them.
Mescladis de Pou
C/ dels Carders, 35
+34 933 19 87 32
Antic Theatre
Carrer de Verdaguer i Callís, 12
+34 933 15 23 54
Norai Raval Museu Marítim
Av de les Drassanes, 1
+34 666 91 99 98