Mercè Casademunt's last chocolate bar at her Granja Viader

BarcelonaIt's Tuesday afternoon, and at Granja Viader in Barcelona (c. Xuclà, 6) the tables are full of people eating thick hot chocolate with a side of whipped cream and another small dish of churros sprinkled with sugar. Serving them is Marc Espuny Casademunt (Barcelona, 1986), who today is his first day starting work as the owner. He does so just one month before his mother, Mercè Casademunt Viader (Barcelona, 1959), retires at 67 years old. "I would have liked to retire earlier, but the years for it weren't being counted, and there was also the fact that Marc hadn't told me at any point that he wanted to take over the farm." He didn't tell her until we interviewed her, two years ago, and she said she had no successor. "It was after your article that Marc and I spoke, and he told me: 'Mother, I want to take over Granja Viader,'" explains Mercè, happy. She has Marc by her side, who has spent the day working there as he did at seventeen years old, the first time he worked.

Anyone who has been to Granja Viader knows it is an establishment with a lot of history. Mercè Casademunt knows it all, with the marked years. The establishment is one hundred and fifty-six years old; it dates from 1950. First it was a dairy, but without cows, that sold milk. Marc's great-grandfather went to ask for work around the year 1900, and after years he had already bought it. Around the 1920s he transformed it into a farm, as it is today, but in between there was the Civil War. His six sons went to war, and the only one who stayed was the daughter, Marc's great-grandmother and Mercè's grandmother, who saw how the CNT committee confiscated the premises and stayed to live with her. "It was during this time that the premises were expanded, because at first it was a smaller space," recalls Mercè, who adds that her grandmother had told her that despite everything she got through the war, and that the anarchists stayed to work at Granja Viader some time later.

Each recipe, from a different family member

While mother and son are talking, a waitress approaches me and tells me to please write that "La Granja Viader is not closing, they will continue as usual". And Marc emphasizes: "I don't plan to touch anything, because everything is fine: the chocolate formula, the recipes, which are from my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and mine". It's very fun to ask them whose recipe each of the things they sell is. "From my mother, the mató flan; from my great-grandmother, the mató cake; mine, the chocolate pudding, the Catalan cream mousse, the fresh cheese cake with jam", points out Marc, who when he left the family farm as a young man worked in other companies and also traveled to Mexico. There was also a moment when mother and son understood that it was better for them to work separately, and it wasn't because they didn't get along but because they had different ways of doing things, because they are from different generations. "For all this, and because she had never said anything to me, I thought she wouldn't want to keep La Granja Viader", explains Mercè, who reveals that whenAra Mengem published that she was looking for someone to take over the business, she received all kinds of offers. "They even offered me blank checks, where they told me to set the price I wanted, and they would accept it". Of course, the establishment is very well located, it is central and has an established client base.

And no, no one had to buy Granja Viader for Marc to want to work there for at least forty more years, he comments: "I'm forty now, and I feel strong enough to be here for many years." On the table where we are sitting, and where we start eating melted chocolate (made with cocoa, corn flour, salt, sugar, and cinnamon), is the menu of food that can be ordered. "Mom, you made it new; I didn't know it," says Marc. His mother replies that yes, she just designed it with the help of artificial intelligence, with which she has transformed a photograph of the interior as if it were a drawing. Inside is the top three most ordered products, which are crema catalana, Cacaolat, and honey and ricotta with walnuts. By the way, with the menu design change, there has also been a price increase. "Minimal, because until now the chocolate with churros cost 6.50 euros and now 7."

I pick up the thread of the other ways of doing things that they told me about earlier, and I ask Marc if there is anything he will want to change regarding what his mother used to do. "The opening hours, the closing days, I want to rethink them, because I think perhaps we could have the middays open and close only on Sundays." At this point, Mercè enters, who recounts that closing from 1:30 PM to 5 PM and taking Sundays and Mondays off has been the balance she has found with the staff so that everyone could do their hours. "I don't know if it would work at midday, because we are not a restaurant, but it's true that we make sandwiches. I don't know, all this is what Marc will have to try," she says. Marc believes it could be changed, except for Sundays, which he does want to keep as holidays because he remembers his grandfather telling him that Sundays are for resting: "My great-grandfather rested on his saint's day, Santiago, and on Reyes, but Viader was open; he only took two days off."

The conversation now turns to sales figures. "On December 6th, we sold nine liters of melted chocolate in four hours, it was non-stop," points out Mercè, who admits that cold weather is the best for Granja Viader. When it's hot, business slows down a bit, even though they sell Catalan cream and melted chocolate all year round, at all hours, until 9 PM when they close. Today, Marc's return day, she started with fifteen liters of Catalan cream, which are torched on the spot as requested. "And we also fry the churros on the spot, in a fryer dedicated solely to churros," they explain.

To finish, we need to talk about Mercè's last day of work. It will be on June 10th, and she has already made plans with friends who will visit her in the morning and afternoon. There will surely be champagne to celebrate her retirement and that she will have time for other activities. "I'm looking forward to resting, reading, doing other activities, like living outside of Barcelona, away from the city center, because I live above Viader, and you can't walk around here." Mercè wants to go to Cardedeu, where she has a house with a garden. When she retires, she also wants to celebrate with the workers by visiting the Museu Viader in Cardedeu. "And I won't go too far, because I'm the one in charge of the numbers, and until Marc learns them, I'll keep doing them." There will be a moment, a day, when she has completed the entire handover, and then Marc will indeed take on all the tasks. There will still be one pending item that Marc is kindly asking her to do: "Explain everything you know about Granja Viader to your father so he can write a book." Marc reveals that his parents are Catalan teachers, that they met at university, and that his father enjoys writing. "The way the father writes, and with all that the mother knows, we could make a book so that the history of Viader is not lost." The mother agrees, saying they will do it. And she says this while positioning herself behind the counter where they sell Catalan creams, as a queue has formed of people needing service. They will do it all.

For now, the most immediate task: on June 10th, she will take off and hang up the black jacket she has worn all these years to serve customers at Granja Viader.