Devour downtown summer 20159/26/2023 ![]() This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer in Barcelona.Ĭopyright © 2015 NPR. They see a future with locals and tourists eating together. It does feel like David and Goliath, but, you know, David was smarter.įRAYER: With a little boost from these tours, some of those Davids - Barcelona's oldest family bars - are re-negotiating rents with their landlords and competing with big chains. JAMES BLICK: There's nothing wrong with chains, but we don't just want to have all chains. It's a shame, but it is a little bit crazy.įRAYER: Barcelona's center is becoming a sort of Disneyland version of itself, says Devour tour's founder, James Blick, who's originally from New Zealand. It has kind of become part market, part tourist attraction. That makes it about 20 years older than La Boqueria - that very big, colorful market on Las Ramblas. UNIDENTIFIED MEN: (Singing in foreign language).įRAYER: Christensen leads her tour group through a square where gypsies strum guitars and into a vermouth bodega, a bakery run by a Syrian immigrant and a market completely off the beaten path.ĬHRISTENSEN: This market was inaugurated in 1892. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Delicious - it's a good thing I'm hungry (laughter). Now alongside locals at the bar, tourists chomp into Rosa's special botifarra sausage. ROSA SANCHEZ TOSCA: (Foreign language spoken).įRAYER: "Without rent control, so many emblematic places are closing and everything's starting to look the same." She says she's had two tough years, but the food tour has helped her stay in business. Rosa Sanchez Tosca was born in the stairwell next door. But I think a lot of these places, too, are places with history, so we hope that none of these places will ever close.įRAYER: Places like Can Tosca, where black-and-white photos of generations of the Tosca family line wood-paneled walls. Has anyone ever been on a food tour before?įRAYER: Renee Christensen is an American ex-pat and tour guide for Devour Barcelona, a food tour with a social mission to save this city's mom-and-pop tapas bars.ĬHRISTENSEN: We have a market here, a great place to have seafood, places you won't find in a guide book. RENEE CHRISTENSEN: Everyone - quick question. But some foreigners are actually trying to preserve the city's oldest businesses. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Shouting in foreign language).įRAYER: Residents of beach-side Barceloneta have been protesting Airbnb rentals that host bachelor parties where foreigners rage and vomit in their cobblestone streets all night. They boost the economy but put off some locals. The city of two million now gets more than seven-and-a-half million tourists a year. Barcelona's gentrification has been fueled by a huge spike in tourism. Its historic storefront is being renovated to host a chain clothing store. That's because rent controls expired this winter, so this family business is moving into the only space it can now afford - a storage room. "We're struggling to do right by our employees, but our rent has tripled this year," he says. ![]() So posh, in fact, that manager Faustino Munoz says he can no longer afford to stay.įAUSTINO MUNOZ: (Foreign language spoken).įRAYER: "We just can't compete with big chain stores," he says. Now there are BMWs outside on what's become one of Barcelona's poshest avenues. A hundred years ago, customers rolled up here in horse-drawn carts. LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Workers are renovating the historic facade of Colmado Quilez, a wine and cheese shop in downtown Barcelona. Lauren Frayer reported earlier this summer on the efforts to stop that trend. The quaint restaurants and shops that draw tourists to the city are being replaced by big chain stores. There's a disappearing act happening in Barcelona.
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