The Portuguese Snack Bar Is Where To Find The Fun
And all the soup you can eat
Is it too late to say Happy New Year? I’m going with it — HNY everyone. I hope you a) have not caught any sort of January bug (unlike me who must have caught something on a plane last week) and b) are not overstretching yourselves with New Year’s resolutions.
Whilst I don’t really do resolutions, I do have unstructured, stress-free professional aims I want to achieve this year. One is to make The Sauce the best it can possibly be (see what I mean about unstructured?)
I don’t want to flood your inbox with posts so I don’t plan to increase quantity too much, just quality, as I explore the following:
Whilst some of my work is available to everyone, the really good stuff is behind the paywall which helps to pay for the huge amount of time and effort it takes to produce The Sauce. $5 a month or $50 a year and you get access to it all:
As part of that professional aim, I’ve also gotten my ass in gear on Instagram. I’m posting more including wines I’m drinking, food and travel that inspires me (and hopefully you), recipes I’m developing and musings on it all. If Insta is your thing, follow me here.
Onwards.
The journey from Porto airport to my apartment passes through those suburbs every European city seems to possess. Big apartment blocks. Faceless roads. Small stores that look like they were last renovated well before you were born.
It can be a bit dreary, especially if Porto is rain-dumping as it does so often.
That is until you pass the snack bars. Portuguese third spaces, open all day, always ready with a coffee, beer, or, indeed, a snack. You’ll normally find a snack bar in these suburbs on every block.
I find their presence incredibly comforting because they are comforting. Comforting in food, atmosphere, and how they all pretty much work the same.
I don’t take snack bars for granted. I’m from the UK where third spaces — places outside the home or work that garner community for all — have been systematically dismantled to make room for more Starbucks chains or Wetherspoons pubs. But here in Portugal, it’s different. The snack bar is the working horse of the neighbourhood. The quintessential third space accessible to anyone with a handful of Euros in their pocket.
In a rapidly commercialised world, we need snack bars and their ilk, regardless of whether you live in Portugal, Spain, the UK, the US, or anywhere else.
The third space is a funny beast. We lament the loss of them, these physical spaces where humans congregate and spend time talking to people, doing community-eque things and hanging out.
The idea of them is amazing, I think few people would disagree. But I read an interesting article on Substack yesterday (which I now frustratingly can’t find) about how in reality, many people couldn’t handle spending time in a third space.
The reason, they said, was that we live in an increasingly tailor-made-for-us world. Partly because we live increasingly online which is algorithmically tailored to our preferences. And partly because in the real world, we expect extreme levels of personalisation. Think of the Starbucks coffee order.
The third space isn’t like that. It doesn’t bend to you, you bend to it. There is no skinny latte extra foam, extra hot coffee order, there is just coffee. Soda? Here in Portugal, it’s Sumoll sparkling orange, Coca-Cola, or Pedras sparkling water. And beer? Super Bock on tap here in the north, Sagres in the south.
The article had a point. For people used to personalisation, the third space could be confusing. Annoying, even. I’ve certainly heard a tourist or two in a snack bar asking for out-of-the-ordinary orders, which might be as simple as asking for non-dairy milk in their coffee.
But that doesn’t mean third spaces shouldn’t exist. They absolutely should because what they add to a community far outweighs a few people’s derision at their lack of personalisation.
Even Stanley Tucci has weighed in on the third space debate, claiming that Americans could vacation better if they embrace them on holiday:
(Tucci) believes Italians "are much better at taking vacations" than Americans. Part of this is the result of more time off given to employees by companies, but it's also because of the way "third spaces" are woven into Italians' daily lifestyles.
I agree. Here in Portugal, you would miss out on a huge part of experiencing daily Portuguese life if you didn’t visit a snack bar or two.
It’s 6 am and I’m rushing to catch a bus to central Portugal where my husband is working in a winery for the summer. The only place open on my street is my local snack bar which is unfathomably busy for so early in the morning. Workers taking a coffee and pastry. Parents with kids on their (no doubt) third coffee of the day.
I buy a bolo de arroz — a dense, sweet, muffin-like cake made from rice flour — for my journey. €1.10 and my belly is full until lunchtime.
It’s 3 pm and I’m starving after an intense work session that went on far too long. I duck into the nearest snack bar and don’t even ask to see the menu. I order sopa and tosta mista — soup and a ham and cheese toastie. I’ve never known a country to be so obsessed with soup, and ham and cheese toasties are not far behind. These will be available at almost every snack bar, whether advertised or not.
I wash down my lunch with Pedras, the slightly salty Portuguese sparkling water my friends here claim cures all ills. Bad stomach? Pedras will settle you. Overdone it at the gym? Pedras will replace your salts. Hungover? Pedras will cure that headache.
7pm. The working day is done and I fancy a beer and bifana — thinly sliced pork marinated in wine and herbs, stuffed in a bun and doused with piri piri. I order my fino — a 20cl / 6oz sized beer — and take a seat outside. My friend walks past. They have a few minutes so they take a fino with me and we chat for 15 minutes. One of those small interactions that makes you feel more connected to where you live.
It’s 1.30 am and I’m walking home from a friend’s house. A few snack bars are still open and catering to hordes of Porto University’s students in their ubiquitous black cloaks, singing their songs and drinking their beers. The vibe is chilled. No fights, no overdoing the booze. A far cry from my own college years spent in shitty nightclubs drinking shot after shot of something that pretended to be vodka whilst the police broke up fights outside.
These vignettes are why snack bars are such an important part of Portuguese life. Available to everyone, cheap, almost always open, they hit every point Ray Oldenburg — author of the book The Great, Good Place — says a third space needs to hit:
Neutral ground — there is no obligation to be there.
A leveling place — one's socioeconomic status does not matter.
Conversation is the main activity.
Accessible and accommodating.
Regulars help to set the atmosphere.
A low profile — without extravagance. Cozy. Never snobby or pretentious.
A playful mood.
A home away from home.
It’s not a stretch to say that snack bars are one of the reasons I live in Portugal. They signify what is becoming increasingly difficult to find in the UK and US. Yes, we have coffee chains, but they don’t hit many points on that list. Yes, in the UK we have pubs but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. 50 pubs a month closed in the first half of 2024.
But here in Portugal — as with Spain and Italy — third spaces thrive.
I have no doubt they are difficult to run. I suspect owners are not happy with how much money they make. You’ve got to sell a lot of €0.90 beers or €1.50 soups to make a profit, especially in cities like Porto and Lisbon where rents are unspeakably high.
Which is why, if you’re lucky enough to have a third space like a snack bar, pub or dive bar close to you, it’s important to make use of it. Even if the lack of personalisation feels weird to you.
Without them, we lose something important.
We lose community. We lose a place where older people can congregate (loneliness is literally a killer). We lose heritage.
And with that, I’m off for another sopa and tosta mista. Snack bar style.
For fans of Portuguese living:
You had me at Gazela!
I think this is the first time I've come across the concept of the third space. I'm interested because I recently tried (and failed) to open an alcohol free bar and I think a lot of what you say applies to that. Would a coffee shop not fit your definition because there's a lack of interaction?