Café Pamplona

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Café Pamplona, August 2005

Café Pamplona, located at 12 Bow St. beside the intersection of Bow and Arrow Streets near Harvard Square, is an unusual and renowned café. When it opened in 1959 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it was the first café in the Square. The owner Josefina Yanguas claims the café owned the first espresso-maker in the city. Down a flight of stairs customers enter the café's subterranean interior. The austere decor includes white walls and low ceilings, and a black and white checked floor. In light of the changes of the last 20 years it has since become a staple of the "Old Square."

Josefina Yanguas, who arrived in America in 1947, roughly modelled the café after those of her native Pamplona, Spain. The café has become a home away from home for Josefina and a special part of the Cambridge public. Yanguas opened the café as a place for people to meet openly and express themselves in public. This philosophy was deeply molded by her formative experiences in Franco's Spain. Known by the staff and the public simply as Josefina, she has been an integral and loved part of the Cambridge community for over fifty years. The café is sustained almost entirely by foot traffic and word of mouth as she has never believed in advertising. Even the black sign over the door is hardly visible compared to the myriad of signs found today on public thoroughfares.

Since 1959 Yanguas has been the only owner of the café. She is also responsible for opening "Iruña," the Spanish restaurant set back off JFK St in Harvard Sq. Opened in the late 1960's, Iruña is the Basque for "Pamplona." Yanguas was inspired by a sign at the outskirts of her native city. It included both the Spanish and Basque renderings of the name. Yanguas who is Basque by descent has embodied this duality, an integral part of her adopted homeland, yet decidedly Spanish.

The menu is a combination of strong coffee, dessert, and Spanish main courses supplemented by grilled Cuban sandwiches. Menu staples include American coffee (still a dollar), Café con Leche (a latté for the uninitiated), Medias Noches (the grilled Cuban sandwich with ham, pork, and cheese), and a delicious and authentic flan. The menu has unfailingly remained the same for the last 40 years. Apart from a brief experiment serving tapas from 2002-2004, the menu is identical with only a modicum of additions.

The café is now non-smoking in accord with Massachusetts law. For years the café was smoke-filled until partial smoking ban was put into effect by the city of Cambridge in 2000. Now smoking is only permitted on the terrace.

Pamplona is unusual for its full table service. The uniformed waiters don white shirts, black ties, and black pants and shoes. The waitstaff has always had unique latitude in their outlook toward the public. As owner, Yanguas maintains a laissez faire philosophy toward her employees' interactions with customers. She staunchly believes the relationship between waiter and customer is "50/50" as she puts it. The Zagat guide has always noted the staff's eccentric service style, often with tongue in cheek.

Shortly after the café's inception Yanguas and her loyal Cuban chef Juana Rodríguez would prepare and serve food. As business grew Yanguas began to hire only men in accord with Spanish habits. This practice lasted until 1999. In Fall of that year this policy was revealed by the Harvard Crimson.[1] This hiring practice, known tacitly for years, was in keeping with the common Spanish tradition of hiring entirely one sex or the other. At the time of the article, a disgruntled Cambridge citizen threw a brick through a café window. Due to necessity and forward-looking manager James Timberlake, Jenny Follen was hired in late 1999, the first woman since 1959. Since that time the café has observed standard, more sensitive, hiring practices.

The café proudly acknowledges the diversity of its clientèle. The interaction between customers and staff forms an integral part of the café's appeal. Café regulars have included an endless number of neighborhood devotees returning daily for the past 20 to 30 years. It is well-known for attracting both bohemians and academics from nearby Harvard University and the greater Cambridge community. Notable celebrities who have been patrons of the café have included Al Gore, Cornell West (former Harvard Professor), Harvey Silverglade (prominent lawyer) and his wife (famed local photographer), Arthur Maas (former Harvard professor) Christopher Leydon (former radio show host The Connection), Harvard filmmaker Robert Forrester, John Malkovitch (now Cambridge resident), Dustin Hoffman (when he was a Brandeis student), Corazon Aquino (former president of the Philippines), and Rafael Moneo, the Spanish architect and Harvard professor.

The small mural on a wall in the cafe was painted fresco-style directly on site, by local artist Conger Metcalf, friend of the owner. Completed some time in the late Sixties, its yellowed background is due to years of exposure to cigarette smoke. During this period the walls in the café needed to be painted every 4 years as they would significantly yellow from smoke. While the central figure looks strikingly like the owner, she claims that it is not her portrait. Metcalf died sometime in the early Nineties.

In December 2004, after 46 years, Yanguas decided to close the Pamplona. Intent on selling the café the process dragged on with no significant prospects. Finally in May of that year, she reopened the café.

[edit] Pamplona references

Throughout the years the café and Josefina's house have been mentioned by a variety of media outlets. It has won best café in the Boston area in Improper Bostonian, and other local publications. In 2000 an architectural exposé was written about Josefina's apartment in the Boston Globe Magazine. The café has been mentioned on NPR and in variety of artist's reflections. Because of its atmosphere and history, Pamplona served as the inspiration for a variety of artists and thinkers. Reminiscent anecdotes of reading, working and talking in the café are recounted by a number of Harvard and Cambridge luminaries.

The location for one of the scenes in the film version of Prozac Nation.
Accounts of the café regularly appear in memoirs, including Pepper White's The Idea Factory: Learning to Think at MIT.
The book [[Love Story {novel)|Love Story]], later made into a film with Ali McGraw, was written by Erich Segal in the café and includes a scene there (the book, not the movie).
Café Pamplona is mentioned in the Dresden Dolls song "Truce". "You can have Africa Asia Australia as long as you keep your hands off Cafe Pamplona."
In April of 2004 painter and sculptor (and former head waiter 1999-2005), Jeffrey P. Smith, built an art installation for the Boston Museum School 5th Year program. Called "Space for Solitude" it was largely based on architectural details of the café.[2] The door which had been on the café since its opening (1959-2004) was the same door used in Smith's installation. In his catalogue essay he dedicated the work in part to owner Josefina Yanguas.
In January and February 2006, the café's courtyard was the site of a temporary public art installation by DeWitt Godfrey titled "Pamplona," and sponsored by the Cambridge Arts Council.