Joan Bayén, better known as Juanito or Pinotxo, for the emblematic Bar Pinotxo that he ran until recently in the La Boqueria market, has died this Tuesday at the age of 89 of natural causes, as confirmed to Comer La Vanguardia by the communication office of the Boqueria market.
The waiter, who spent 81 years behind the bar of the legendary establishment, announced in February the transfer of the premises due to health problems. Since then his family has been faced with a controversial lawsuit over disagreements over the future of Bar Pinotxo, since after the Restaurante Egipto SLU acquired the transfer and resumed activity a little over a month ago, the Commercial court number 9 of Barcelona ordered a precautionary measure so that the new operator would stop using the name Pinotxo Bar at the request of Bayén’s nephew, Jordi AsÃn Bayén. This assured, while claiming the intellectual property rights of the brand, that his uncle had been “remote-controlled” by other members of the family in the transfer process.
Joan Bayen y Pérez was born in Barcelona in 1934. When he was only 7 years old, he saw the movie Pinocchio and was so dazzled by the adventures of this wireless puppet that when they gave him a dog, he did not hesitate for a second to call him Pinotxo. From a very young age, he helped his mother Catalina serve sandwiches and croissants at the 465 stop of the Mercado de La BoquerÃa, which at that time was called the Kiosk. “I started distributing coffees with milk around the stalls and a few years later I was already working at the bar, which changed locations several times,” Bayén said.
Later, his position was renamed Pinotxo, after Juanito’s dog, which obediently waited for its owner to finish his service.
Almost all of us know the rest of the story: over the years, Bar Pinotxo became an institution in La BoquerÃa and Juanito Bayén became the great ambassador of the happiness of small businesses. He had no children, but a woman. And a brother and a sister who are no longer here, but he preferred not to talk about those things (“the client never has to pay one’s penaltiesâ€). And many girlfriends, almost as many as regular clients who follow the joke. “She’s my girlfriend”, he would blurt out to someone who didn’t take long to reply; “You tell everyone that.”
For the chefs and for the professionals in the dining room, Juanito was a master of hospitality. they adored him. And he to them. “We are very lucky to have very great chefs, like Ferran Adrià or the Roca brothers, who were already my friends when no one knew them. And their fame has not risen anywhere.
“Juanito taught me to understand that gastronomy, beyond eating very well, enjoying, feeling pleasure with food, is affection, it is friendship, it is complicity, it is closeness. Yes, without a doubt, friendship is part of the gastronomic experience. And in this sense, Juanito seems to me a true icon of the gastronomy of this country, at the level of any avant-garde chef”, Ferran Adrià went on to say of him. “Juanito is a living legend and will be the myth of La Boqueria. He deserves this award and all those awarded to him. He represents authenticity, hospitality, perseverance making people happy from a market stall,” Joan Roca explained when he told Bayén He was awarded, in 2016, the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona.
It was the year 1998 when Juanito should have retired, but until the end of October 2022 he was still there, undaunted, glued to the ground, fighting with the dataphone and spreading revelry. “He never moved from his beloved coffee machine. From his little corner. The last few days he didn’t come to open the bar, but at half past six he showed up punctually. He didn’t know how to do anything else, â€some of his most loyal customers explained to Comer La Vanguardia in this report.
