Situated on a quaint Almagro corner at Sarmiento and Aníbal Troilo, Río Café Bar had achieved a status reserved for a select set of establishments in Buenos Aires: immune to critique or objective evaluation thanks to the extremely potent drug we call nostalgia.
You know the one. That heady feeling that pushes us to defend the place with the horrible milanesa and gross bathroom because it’s where our grandmother used to take us on Fridays after picking us up from school. Where the smell of old grease and a cash-only policy are pushed aside to make room for memories of writing bad poetry to that one girl who broke your heart after a summer trip to Villa Carlos Paz. Where the ill-mannered waiters that make you feel more like an inconvenience than a paying customer are forgiven because the picture you snapped of them through the window from the sidewalk is doing numbers on Instagram.
It didn’t take long for opinólogos from both sides of the spectrum to roll up their sleeves and get to work. To the left, broken-hearted softies lamenting the loss of an emblematic local café; to the right, fervent fans of the free market eager to remind us just how bad the café con leche was.
Porteños love few things more than getting into heated arguments on Twitter. We excel at turning absolutely everything into a black and white issue. After all, didn’t we basically invent the grieta?
