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This is the story of the missing Catalunya restaurant, inaugurated in the San Juan festival of 1914. It was located on the corner of Plaza Catalunya 4 and Calle Condes de Vergara 16, in front of the El Dorado theater. It had its beginnings when Ramón Perramón decided to enter the world of restoration.
It was in one of the best places in the square between two of the area’s entertainment venues: El Dorado, which had a history before Plaza Catalunya was inaugurated on June 21, 1884 (when it was inaugurated as the Ribas Theater). ; and the Salón Cataluña, located on the ground floor of the Teodoro Bosch house building and inaugurated on Saturday, June 22, 1912.
The café-restaurant was the place for spectators from both venues to find a place to come and have a drink at the entrance or exit of the shows.
It was therefore a place that, at night, was nourished by a clientele loyal to the theater and, also, to the cinema, but something happened that we do not know about, since, shortly after a year from its inauguration, the business passed away in 1915. hands of Joan Amils and Josep Bachs.
From that moment on, both partners turned Cataluña into one of the best restaurants in the city, which led them to achieve recognition not only from customers but from an establishment as important as the Michelin Guide, created in 1900 by the brothers. André and Édouard Michelin.
In 1910 the guide began to collect the Spanish restaurants deserving of this distinction, but it was not until 1936 that the first Catalan restaurants appeared: Monte Calvario in Arenys de Mar and the Barcelona restaurants Euskadi (later Navarra), Cataluña, Font del Lleó, Casa Llibre and the Basque Tavern.
The prestige lasted a short time. First, it was the three years of war that made them all lose their stars; later, coinciding with the end of the civil war and the beginning of General Franco’s dictatorship, the Michelin guide stopped being published in Spain until 1952.
The Cataluña restaurant was affected after the El Dorado Theater closed. The headquarters of Banco Bilbao was opened on the corner with Vergara and the café became a meeting place for the bank’s clients in the mornings, but that did not prevent it from closing its doors in 1954.
The day after the establishment closed, La Hoja del Lunes made a gloss on what had been the 40 years of life of the Catalunya Restaurant, with a small breakdown of the characters who had passed through the establishment and the clubs that had occupied its premises. tables to celebrate the classic gatherings in which everyone was right and they almost never agreed, especially on the subject of politics.
He had a memory for Pepitu, who with his departure marked the beginning of a new era. In the article he also evoked the farewell dinner the night before and the emotion that overwhelmed the other more veteran waiters: Cisquet, Dionis, Torres, Sabartes, Montserrat, Pellicer, Jaime and Ramonet. The veteran Sicart, who had retired a few days before, had also attended the farewell ceremony.
Finally, he made reference to the new location of the premises, which would be divided into two parts: the Vergara part would be occupied by an advertising agency and the corner part would be used to locate the new Lemans bar owned by Jesús Folch Canela.
Folch decorated the establishment with a simple and cozy line, taking advantage of the fact that at that time it was booming, decorating the high baseboards on the walls and the front of the tile bar counter.
In 1986, Folch, who had already heard bells about the intention to build a large shopping center in the area, transferred the bar to the Bernesa restaurant company. Shortly after, the construction of the new Triangle complex was approved, which involved the demolition of the buildings facing the square, which led to the disappearance of the Cervecería Lemans bar.
