The Kabo de Pamplona restaurant, a well-known and recognized establishment in the city, had prepared itself to enjoy the Sanfermines by making customers enjoy themselves during the nine days of festivities. He anticipated some very busy parties and had come to hire three more people to meet the high demand for diners, who add to the staff of six people he has. A scam, however, has annoyed the Sanfermines: they have recorded more than 60 reservations, for a total of 146 diners, who have not turned up or have canceled shortly before the set time.
The owners of the establishment, Jaione Aizpurua and Aaron Ortiz, have not even been able to mitigate this damage through their cancellation policy (25 euros are charged if it fails on weekends or night shift), since the credit cards that had submitted had no funds and the reference numbers provided were fraudulent. The economic damage could exceed 18,000 euros, since the cost per person in San Fermín is around 120 euros, and from Kabo they link it to a premeditated scam that has sought to harm the venue.
“For weeks we have been rejecting reservations because we were full for San Fermín, but what was our surprise when when the day arrived each and every one of the reservations we had were either canceled or did not appear,” they explain from the establishment.
As they indicate, they have found “telephones that did not exist, people who did not know what we were talking about, since they had not made any reservation, or cards without funds.”
Logically, Aizpurua and Ortiz did not suspect a scam designed to harm them, and at first they thought that people “had fallen asleep after the chupinazo or people who had lost track of time.” However, they soon realized that “everything had been perfectly orchestrated.”
From the Kabo restaurant they speak of a “hard emotional blow for the whole team”, as well as “a hard economic blow” before which they have been “unprotected”. This Wednesday, six days after the festive start, they decided to make the facts public, and in the last few hours they have received a barrage of support.
It so happens that Kabo, managed by a very young human team, had to reinvent itself after the pandemic, after being closed for 14 months. The establishment changed premises and opted for specific tasting menus that they promote as “a transformative experience” that combines the heritage of traditional cuisine with the “gastronomic avant-garde”. They see what happened during these Sanfermines “like a small stone in the road” that will not prevent them from leaving strengthened.
