Lazy Sunday afternoon: Café Santa Fe

**** Café Santa Fe closed at the end of 2019, a huge loss for the neighborhood… ****

On Sundays, most shops and restaurants in Palma are closed and we have the city all to ourselves. Particularly on those hot summer days when everybody is just heading towards the beaches. I love to waste a long afternoon, just idling along the narrow streets of the beautiful historic city center. They are nicely cool and breezy, too. There is always some place to discover that you hadn’t yet noticed: a small grocery store, an art studio, a restaurant, a clothing store, a new street art painting, or a lush garden behind a tall limestone wall.

It was one of those days that I came across this lovely small café on a secluded spot at the edge of Sa Calatrava. Julio Aguilar and Adrián Teixeira reopened Bar Café Santa Fe in November 2013, naming it after the plaça it’s on – the perfect place for an easy and relaxed break. The friendly staff offer all kinds of lovely snacks, any time of the day. Whether you are hungry for a crunchy salad or just want to go for freshly squeezed orange juice, find a table outside – you’ll sit right under the shady trees.

But it’s actually the people here who turn the terrace into a stage. The play is called life – starring two elderly ladies sipping their coffees, an Italian family with a toddler, a couple of cool kids from Berlin and a group of vecinos at the regular’s table, playing cards and chatting the afternoon away over a couple of beers. They all enjoy the magic of the moment. And once again you realize that it’s the small things that make you happy.