Merendero de la Mari closes in Port Vell over €53,000 rent
The family seafood restaurant at Palau de Mar says a 25% rent rise in 2024 made the numbers impossible. The eviction is set for 2 October, and the concessionaire is already talking to a new operator.
Merendero de la Mari, the seafood restaurant at Palau de Mar in Barcelona's Port Vell, has closed after 31 years on the quay. Its owner, Rosa Maria Ribera, says the business could no longer pay a rent of €53,000 a month, and the eviction is set for Friday 2 October.
Ribera told Time Out Barcelona that the rent rose by 25% in 2024 and that the family has paid around €12 million in rent over 32 years. After a weak summer, with days of only 15 covers, the company missed a payment. According to Ribera, the eviction notice arrived after the first unpaid month, and an offer to pay the arrears in instalments was turned down. The local paper La Ciutat reports that in recent months the money that came in went to wages before rent.
The arithmetic is familiar in the city this autumn: Slow & Low Barcelona is giving up its Michelin-starred menu for tapas because the covers were not there either.
A rent of €53,000 a month needs a full terrace every day, summer or not.
Who sets the Merendero de la Mari rent
The land belongs to the Port of Barcelona. The Palau de Mar building, a restored 19th-century warehouse, is run under a concession, and Ribera describes the concessionaire as a French investment group. Port sources told TotBarcelona that Palau de Mar is handling the case and is already in talks with another operator to take over the premises. Ribera says she was told that many people want to rent the space.
The restaurant seated more than 200 people inside and on the terrace, according to Time Out. TotBarcelona puts the current staff at about 25, down from 60 at its peak, and Betevé reports that takings never fully recovered after the pandemic.
From a beach shack to Palau de Mar
The family's trade on the Barceloneta seafront goes back to 1927 and Can Costa, a beach shack serving steamed mussels and pickled sardines, according to TotBarcelona. The name Merendero de la Mari appeared in 1988 on Sant Miquel beach. After the 1992 Olympic works reshaped the seafront, the business moved to Palau de Mar, where it opened in 1995.
Ribera runs it as the fourth generation; her son Guillem Coloma, the fifth, is the chef. The kitchen built its name on rice dishes and seafood, and La Ciutat recalls that it won the best seafood restaurant title on TV3's Joc de Cartes.
Ribera, 64, told Betevé that she has no plan yet and first needs to take in what has happened. The keys go back on Friday. The next tenant of the terrace will be chosen by the concessionaire, not by the family that has cooked on this stretch of coast since 1927.
