Municipality of Valparaiso and café’s owner work together to restore area

The legendary Café Riquet will reopen its doors this coming spring after shutting down three years.  The reopening of the café is part of a plan by the Municipality of Valparaiso to restore the area where the café is located. 

 

Café Riquet was a fixture for 76 years in the Anibal Pinto Square, an area considered to be the most bohemian part of Valparaiso. But it closed on Aug. 4, 2007 after the property where it was located was sold to businessman Carlos Montrone Pla, former owner of the Economax supermarket chain.

 

The municipality says it plans to restore the café and neighboring businesses in an effort to create a coffee shop area in Valparaiso. The neighborhood was declared a ‘typical area’ by the National Monuments Council in 1976 and is considered a gateway to the part of Valparaiso that has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Montrone originally planned to build a hotel where the café once sat, but decided to reopen it after carefully evaluating different commercial options for the building. The city and Montrone will work first to restore the external part of the café and then later restore its interior.

Montrone also said the café would expand to the second floor of the building, while an art gallery would be installed on the third floor and a European-style terrace on the rooftop.

On the other side of the building is the Café del Poeta (Poet’s Café), which will continue to operate.  The two cafes will be separated by an ice-cream and light meal business called Emporio La Rosa (The Rose Emporium), a business that first started in Santiago.

The building housing the Café Riquet was built in 1860. The café served as a meeting place for Valparaiso’s bourgeoisie and merchant class in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The café features Austrian and German pastries in a very luxurious environment.

Many famous politicians, including former President Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet, often dined there, and poets like Pablo Neruda took inspiration from sitting in the café.

SOURCE: EL MERCURIO
By Sebastian Leon ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )