Melo's in Madrid is empty.
It is a phrase that in 40 years practically no customer will have been able to say.
Nobody fights for a hole in the bar, nobody drips the liquid bechamel from their croquettes, nobody screams for one more round.
Melo's is empty and it is difficult to assume the complete image of the premises because it is an unprecedented sight.
It closed in February, but it seems the last customers left yesterday.
The glasses wait in a cooler before being filled with beer, the fringed curtain that separates the kitchen from the bar is still sticky with oil and two posters illuminate the only eight items on the menu.
Slippers, croquettes, pasties, blood sausage, Padrón peppers, Galician cheese, ham and cheese with quince.
Nothing else.
The slippers were, are, one-kilo sandwiches made with slices of Galician bread, ham and melted cheese.
A kilo.
Nothing else is needed.
José Ramón Álvarez, the 65-year-old from Leon who four decades ago took the reins of the business together with his wife, Encarni, does not wear sneakers, but black shoes, and his steps are now slow with the help of a crutch.
With a stool he manages to climb the high step of the side door that gives access to the premises, located in the heart of Lavapiés, on Ave María street.
"It is very hard to leave, but now there is no other choice," he says through tears, his voice slow and broken by memories.
Anyone walking past the closed blind might think they are seeing businesses that have not weathered the scourge of the pandemic, but that is not exactly the case.
José Ramón would have coped with it, but a visit to the doctor a year ago because his legs were swollen changed everything.
He first made him shut down during the months of that summer, in February he put on his last sneakers and a few weeks ago an advertisement in Idealista revealed the uncertain future of the business, one of the last bastions against gentrification.
"The famous Café-Bar Melo's is transferred exclusively for retirement."
The price to stay with this "highly profitable and peculiar" temple, 100,000 euros, plus 1,900 monthly rent.
Your billing, "over 60,000" on average per month.
Profitability is also measured in beers.
Four decades of Amstel.
Melo's used from Tuesday to Saturday, only at night, between eight and ten barrels.
Also in lacones, ten a day, except on Thursdays and Fridays when they reached 25. "I used to split them all", claims José Ramón, who keeps some knives at home - "Because they are mine, as I say" - like someone who keeps a relic.
The Melos de Lavapiés has closed.
My highest respects to your croquettes, peppers and slippers.
- Guille Galván 💚 (@galvanguiller) October 14, 2020
José Ramón at work was a show.
The bar, crowded, barrage of orders at the bar and rations flying through the crowd in search of a square centimeter to lean on.
It was time to collect and he, not a note, not a paper.
"They told me that my head had to be studied by scientists."
He knew exactly what each customer had consumed.
“Sometimes he would ask, 'What have you got?'
And they would say: 'Why do you ask me if you know it better than I do?'
Melo's survived the test of time.
Clients who went because their grandparents did.
Famous who fought for a hole like anyone.
Sabina, Massiel, Fernando Martín, Roberto Carlos or Juan Echanove passed by.
“They treated me with great affection,” remembers Jose Ramón.
An authentic corner.
A monument to the fryer and Carbonell, who did not skimp on oil, even if it was more expensive.
That affection is visible right now in the blind of the bar, where some customers have left messages of thanks to a life of slippers.
“We came when we were young and we continue to come with our daughters.
You are part of our history.
I remember as a feat that one night we sat down 13!
in the classroom".
"You are part of our life."
"Thank you very much for so many years of sneakers, croquettes and dumplings."
José Ramón reads them aloud and the tears appear again.
The voice breaks again.
Sitting by the bar, travel back to the beginning.
The opening date, engraved with fire like each drink.
"December 8, 1979."
José Ramón, 24 years old, and his wife Encarna Marrón, 20, are left with a business that had been running for just three months.
He had already been working as a waiter in El Chacón, on the Paseo de Extremadura, and the opportunity arose.
The name was already there, but the rest had nothing to do with it.
A carpeted pub with red sofas, “a very rare thing”.
The young couple completely reformed it and began offering snacks.
But they could not cope and limited the hours from 8:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., a strategic move that would mark the business.
The neighborhood then was also something else.
"A lot of pickpocketing, to pull a knife, and a lot of fights," recalls José Ramón.
Some went into the bathroom to take drugs and that is why he put a key in the control panel to turn off the light from the kitchen.
One day they took out a gun, another they threw a knife at him.
“Because I was telling them, come on, get out of here.
You don't go to the toilet because I don't feel like it.
And in the neighborhood they alerted me: they are going to kill you.
But, you became strong with two children that I had, or they did what they wanted with you ”.
On May 31 of last year they gave him the diagnosis: amyloidosis and kidney cancer.
"I did not want to close, but they told me that if I did not, it would not last at all," assumes Ramón, who has not been deprived of his strength by the hours in the hospital, the days in a wheelchair and the chemo sessions link with the bar: "All the doctors who have treated me are friends of mine, clients from here."
José Ramón looks to the future of Melo's, hoping that whoever takes over will keep his love for a business that has been his life.
"There is a boy who lives here and whom I have known since he was five years old, who is one of those interested."
Their offer, which would include the purchase of the premises, is close to what they are asking for the transfer, according to the intermediary Inmorest Consultores, specialized in the valuation of hospitality businesses, which ensures that the price is not high, despite the crisis.
“Three years ago they offered him 300,000.
It is a profitable business ”.
The key is that it does not lose its essence and that is why José Ramón is willing to pass on to the new owners all the knowledge and contacts with the suppliers, except for one thing: the croquettes.
"Only the boss knows how to do them and she says she has never taught them nor will she teach them."
Inside the building, a plaque commemorates the owner of Melo's for his management when he was president of the community and made life easier for more than one.
He lived on one of the upper floors, where his now ex-wife Encarni stayed, separated from the bar eight years ago, although she has helped promptly.
Many customers know this well who guessed who had made the croquettes with the first bite.
That flavor may never return, but sneakers have the opportunity to remain as the gastronomic heritage of a Madrid that, hit by the pandemic, is more in danger than ever.
