The restaurant that Costes de Barcelona wants to evict in fifteen days (with the operating contract in force)

The story that the restaurant La Caleta in Sant Vicenç de Montalt is experiencing has three protagonists: Adif, the State Coastal Demarcation (in Barcelona), and the Casado family, who have been serving seafood dishes there since 1955. Since Albert Casado's grandfather, the current generation in charge, opened the restaurant located between the beach and the road, they have paid a semi-annual rent to Adif, who represented that they were the owner of the land. However, without the Casado family knowing, in 2017 the owner of the property was transferred to the State Coastal Demarcation in Barcelona, an agency that depends on the Ministry of Ecological Transition. And this is where the big mess begins.

“It's a mess because, to begin with, we didn't know and, then, we have continued to pay rent to Adif as always; we have been paying semi-annually for seventy-one years,” says Albert Casado (Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, 1988), who expresses the nervousness he feels due to the eviction notice he received from Costes de Barcelona. Last Tuesday, Albert received, as expected, the bill to pay the rent, but two days later, on Thursday, he received a letter from Costes informing him that he would be evicted in fifteen days because the land occupied by La Caleta does not comply with the regulations of the coastal law. To all this is added that in 2015 the Casado family had signed a contract with Adif according to which they could continue working there for another fifteen years.

Final eviction judgment

“Since last Thursday we have started to file appeals, because our contract is valid, because we have been paying religiously for seventy-one years and because twenty salaries depend on the work of La Caleta,” says Albert Casado, who adds that the first notification he received from Costas announcing the eviction was last February; Thursday, the final one. “Although all my papers are in order, it is as if the judge had invalidated the current contract I have, because there is a final eviction order,” says Casado.

For their part, and after the meetings the family has held with the Sant Vicenç de Montalt City Council, the government team has declared that it will act as a mediator in the restaurant's situation. “The Secretary of Local Governments of the Generalitat, Xavier Amor, will meet tomorrow, Friday, in Madrid to be able to stop the sentence,” says Albert Casado.

Everything is up in the air about what might happen in the coming days, but there is one certainty, which is the support the family has received since last Thursday. “We must have done something right all these years when everyone gives us so much warmth,” says Casado, who feels gratitude for people. In fact, the news went viral as a result of the messages that the restaurant itself began to make public, and in which it also made known that, in addition to the salaries that depend on the restaurant, there is the fact that Albert has a young son with a 75% disability and a degree of dependency three.

La Caleta offers menus from Tuesday to Friday for 18 euros, which always include fish and rice, and on weekends a la carte. “On a Saturday and Sunday lunch, we serve two hundred and twenty people,” comments the manager of La Caleta, who adds that it is the restaurant that works best for him out of the two he owns: the other is Mas Nadal, and it is located in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres.