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When we walk through the upper part of the Rambla, Pelai street or Plaza de Catalunya, we find the Triangle buildings and the old Banco Bilbao. We cannot imagine that just a century ago this place was an impassable dirt road.
On the mountain side, a train station had blocked the current Ronda Universidad and walking down towards the Rambla you would find the current underground railway station that took the citizens of Barcelona to the then municipality of Sarrià , whose station was then located at ground level. street.
That area was little less than impassable, since without buildings and without lighting, it was a bit of what was said to be an “inhospitable road” for citizens in the early hours of the morning who had to move from one place to another.
A citizen who saw the construction of the station and how soulless it was, having no constructions around, thought about the cold that travelers would spend waiting on the street for the station doors to open.
So he bought a small plot of land that was free next to the station to set up a business where people waiting to get in to catch the train could wait protected from the cold while having a hot drink.
He built a barracks, a refuge for travelers, which had a handful of drinks on its shelves under a small wooden counter. It was the seed of the current Zurich cafeteria. It was the year 1863.
Time passed and the place became the La Catalana chocolate shop, which already presented its customers with a new charm. It attracted new and more select clientele, who were not going to take the train, but to enjoy its services, since the area had gradually been urbanized.
One of his new clients, a Catalan traveler named Serra, who had been working for many years in Switzerland and had returned to Spain to settle in the city, fell in love with the place and the La Catalana chocolate shop. So much so that he decided to acquire it to develop his new life and it was then that he changed its name, turning it into the Zurich Chocolate Shop.
But, since first love is never definitive, another Catalan, Andreu Valldeperas i Ros, fought hard for her and, in 1920, conquered her. The Zurich ChocolaterÃa, from then until today, would become Café Zúrich.
In 1925, with the preparations for the 1929 exhibition, the city’s nerve center square took on much more prominence and the Valldeperas family knew how to see it and adapt to the moment. They moved the tables and chairs out of the bar to the street, with excellent commercial vision.
They say that it was in the 1930s when the then charity commissioner Roc Boronat, who was sitting in Zurich, upon seeing the suffering of a blind beggar, led to the foundation of the Union of the Blind of Catalonia, the seed of the current ONCE.
Esteban Cortés, a Brazilian in charge of the premises, one day recounted that Zurich and Barcelona would never be alien to each other, because each episode that the city experiences is reflected in the activity of the bar.
He commented that each National Day, each triumph of Barça celebrated in the nearby Canaletas fountain and each protest act, brought together such a crowd in the Plaza de Catalunya that it endangered the terrace and many times they had to close the premises.
Due to its location on the road to the sea, the Zürich, on some occasions, has become a faithful notary of some of the events that the city has suffered, for example, during the Civil War, in the robbery of the Central Bank or the celebration of the titles won by FC Barcelona. It is in a magical enclave for thousands of travelers and tourists.
Paul Benjamin Auster, American writer, screenwriter and film director who received the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters in 2006, wrote a novel about Zurich. He spent a Saturday afternoon observing the customers and checking the problems that were occurring at the different tables: they were waiting for them to come looking for them. A woman was waiting for her partner to break the relationship. Some parents argued with their son because they did not want him to go with certain friends…
Another historical anecdote. On the occasion of Franco’s coup and the attempt to control the Telefónica building for the cause, for each of the two sides it was an impromptu meeting point.
It was the meeting place in the middle of the 20th century for those travelers who had just arrived and were unfamiliar with the city. Then there was no El Corte Ingles, nor mobile phones.
On Saturday May 23, 1981, three months after the attempted coup, due to the attempted robbery of the Central Bank, Zurich became the central office for operations to evict him.
Zurich has life for a while, because after the death of Andreu Valldeperas i Ros, on December 18, 2018, at the helm of Zurich, there is a new Andreu Valldeperas, the fourth in the saga, preparing to assume the fifth generation his daughter Maria.
