Reinvent or die are the two options that seem to be available to press sellers today. The reduction in consumption of paper newspapers and magazines has meant that kiosks – whether located in the center, in the most peripheral neighborhoods or on the streets … hidden – fight every day for their survival. The trend of the last decade, where half of these spaces had to close, does not encourage hope in this business established for decades, and which is now abandoning its main stage at street level. But these historic stalls are now finding new life with the sale of memorybut also takeaway coffees and vinyl records.
At number 25 José Abascal Street, El Rebaño has been open for just over 40 days. Maintaining the concept of the kiosk but taking advantage of the rise of specialty coffees in the capital, Álvaro, Javi, Guillermo and Javi launched the idea at the beginning of the year. “We are childhood friends, we went to school together. “Apart from that, everyone has their own job, but this calls us to carry out a project like this,” Álvaro explains to this newspaper.
And that’s how two consultants, a programmer and a bank employee, during a trip they took together, made the decision to create their own start-up, which “unlike those that have opened recently”, they point out, this one is analog.
“We started looking in stores and couldn’t find anything we liked and were more interested in the concept of takeaway drinks. Here in Spain, specialty coffee is starting to hit harder and is everywhere, but the spaces we saw were very small and nothing suited us in terms of location,” continue to explain these 27-year-olds, who take turns on weekends to lead their project. It was then that the idea of doing it in a kiosk appealed to them.
The proximity to the metro entrance, in an area of the center where “you can live a neighborhood life” but where there are also offices and the installation in one of the busiest streets of the capital ended up falling in love with the owners, originally from Pozuelo de Alarcón. Once everything was in order, they worked all summer to set up the space where, in addition to take-away coffees, newspapers and magazines, there were second-hand books. “We are also looking to leave our mark on the kiosk. We have books on entrepreneurship, by Proust and Herman Hesse, of which I am a big fan”, emphasizes Álvaro.
Selling Vinyl to Guarantee Survival
But this is not the only kiosk in the capital to have explored this opportunity. The Bonne Nouvelle channel, installed in different kiosks across the capital, has found a new way to breathe new life into these disappearing spaces. The Association of Professional Press Sellers of Madrid (AVPPM) is aware of this situation and the reopening of these spaces for the sale of other products in addition to newspapers and magazines, but emphasizes that “this is not a traditional kiosk”.
However, there are also other kiosks in the capital that have transformed them into souvenir sales spaces, and still others have transformed their space into vinyl sales stands, such as the Morrison kiosk. Located at 114 Alcalá Street, one of the longest and busiest streets in the city, this space has chosen to reinvent itself to guarantee its survival with the sale of music and literature, but also coffee.
According to data provided to this newspaper by the AVPPM, in November 2015, the number of kiosks in the capital was 505. Today, this figure has been reduced to 266. Almost half of them have been ordered to close.
This urgency in the sector was discussed during the last meeting of this association of press sellers with Madrid City Hall, which is committed to studying the requests of these businessmen, emphasizing the importance of providing kiosks with new opportunities to maintain their historical role in the neighborhoods of the capital. The municipality has granted subsidies to the association and has carried out various actions to improve its situation, such as the modification of the Ordinance regulating press kiosks in 2021, or the 100% bonus on the occupancy rate of public roads.
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