Tomar un cafรฉ means โhave a coffeeโ in Spanish. But accept a friend’s invitation to โtomar un cafรฉโ in Spain and you can expect beer, soda, and, not unreasonably, a plate of jamรณn to arrive at the table. Here, having a coffee is, semantically anyway, less about black liquid in white ceramic than social connection and shared relaxation.
This is what makes Monkee Koffeeโs work both challenging and gratifying, according toย รscar Gonzรกlez, co-owner of the Madrid cafe. โWe are in our second year now, but it has [felt] like three years,โ he says. โIt has been very hard.โ
Monkee, which opened in late 2014, is one of the cityโs still small numberย of โthird-generationโ coffee shopsโlocals would call it “un cafรฉ 3G.” Unlike most of the others, however, Monkee is in an untrendy, tourist-scarce neighborhood, Vallehermoso in the Chamberรญ district.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, classic soul and R&B bounceย off the cafeโs brick walls and exposed pipes. Laptop-engaged 20-somethings speaking Spanish and English take to a large wooden communal table like capuchins to a tree. At the bar, they order espresso-based drinks made on a chorizo-red, two-group La Marzocco FB80 from a house blend by Spanish roaster Supracafรฉ. To the right of three Mazzer grinders, customers pick up fresh, simple day fare, such as salads, yogurt stuccoed with granola, and a basic classic, toast with tomato puree. On the far end, glass tiers showcase baked goods, including a revelation in ovenly output: the carrot cookie.
Gonzรกlez concedes that, when it had been time to brand Monkee and spread news of its debut, he and his business partner, Salvador Figueros, and their five fellow investors, benefited from the decades they’d allย spent as professional marketers, mainlyย in the TV industry. Gonzรกlez had also traveled enough to take inspiration from Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia, and his favorite,ย Panther Coffee in Miami. But those examplesย onlyย gotย themย so far. In fact, the seven owners, operating under the company name Slow Koffee, began with outsize ambitions.
โWe wanted to have enough people to be able to grow very fast,โ Gonzรกlez admits, โto have the economic resources to grow. But, as I told you, this [one] year felt like three, because we had wanted to launch some 20 to 25 [branches] and it had to go slowerโbecause in Spain we donโt have the market.โ
Securing real estate was not easy for a startup in Spainโs volatile economy, the group learned, with listed propertiesโ monthly rent jumping from โฌ2,000 to โฌ5,000 within a year. The space Monkee settled on had been abandoned for 20 years, Gonzรกlez explains. This made it more affordable and also provided a blank slate for its industrial chic-meets-vintage schoolhouse aesthetic, which, though familiarย in some corners of the world, still has Madrileรฑos smitten. Building up a team required patience, too. Today Monkee has eight skilled baristas, six of whom spent the last year training on the job. (That Gonzรกlez knows of just one La Marzocco repairperson in all of Madrid is yet another story.)
It’s true that Spainโs coffee culture has been slow to evolve. At an average eatery, youโll usually find delicious, well-prepared food. But ask for a “solo” (a single shot of espresso) or a “cafรฉ con leche” (something that once yielded a cafรฉ au lait butย which nowย appears to have transformedย into a latte) and youโll realize that 100 percent Arabica beans and fresh milkโor even milk that’s been steamed no more thanย onceโare not givens. Italianย behemothsย Illy and Lavazza seem about as nationally endeared here as Zara and Chupa Chups. In more commerce-driven parts of town itโs easy to spot paper cups from Starbucks, in Spain since 2002.
So ifย Madrid might not yet be ready for a score of Monkees, the capital is due to get two more in 2016. And if the first one is a reliable indicator, they will be popular.
Earlier this year, public TV station Telemadrid broadcast a segment reporting that Monkee was โcontinuing to revolutionize the world of coffee.โ Not long after, a headline in Spanish daily El Mundo suggestedย Monkeeย might be the best cafe in Madrid.
Though the oil and vinegar bottles at the sugar-and-napkin station probably get more attentionย than Monkeeโs AeroPress or Harioย V60, Monkee’sย Third Wave trappings are unmistakable. The cafe hostsย cuppings, and each month a new single-origin coffee is listed on aย blackboard with a few lines detailing its provenance. The beans come from microroasters right in the city, such as Mokka, Guayacรกn, and Puchero Coffee Roasters.
โActually, [for] now we are teaching coffee culture,โ states Leticia Kerinec Lรณpez, Monkeeโs community manager. She points to the cafe’s communal table. โThatโs something new here in Spain, because we never share a table,โ she says. โThe first time I saw that it was in London, and then in New York, but here I have never seen it.โ
According to Gonzรกlez, another exoticย habit Spaniards are learning at Monkee is bussing their own used cups and plates. โThese trays,โ he saysย of the wooden boards nearby, โwhen [customers] finish, they take them up. Here, in Madrid, thatโs incredible. My father, every day he [comes and] has a coffee, and afterward he takes [the tray up].โ His mother, he adds, would be shocked to see him do this at home.
Monday morning had dawned a clientele far more diverse than the weekendโs. It well reflected Gonzรกlezโs vision for Monkee. โThis is for everybody,โ he says. โThereโs the risk in places like this that [people] wonโt go because [they think]: โThis place is not for me.โ No, we donโt want that. We want a place for everybody.โ
To the un-Monday-morning-like beatย of reggae, businesspeople talked shop, students seemed to battle their ownย pressing deadlines, retirees read, a child fed her doll, and, sure enough, Gonzรกlezโs 81-year-old dad came in for his daily caffeine fix.
Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read moreย Karina Hof on Sprudge.ย