The Alliance Café, in Faro, is about to reopen its revolving doors. One of the three oldest cafés in Portugal will re-emerge as Cervejaria Aliança, within a few weeks, and wants to assume itself as «the heart of Faro».
After about nine months of work, Cervejaria Aliança will be created by the hand of businessman Mário Nogueira, who was won over by the façade, which he looked at for a long time, before deciding to start the project.
«More than having conquered Aliança, it was Aliança that conquered me. I live in the city and like, at night, especially in the summer, to walk around, feel the city, the movement, the economic activity… and Aliança, closed for years and years, was something that “aggressed” me. I used to go to it when it was open and felt its potential, due to its location, its historical character. I spent many nights on that bank looking at Aliança and Aliança looking at me, until I decided to go forward», he explained to Sul Informação.
After advances and setbacks in negotiations with the owners of the building, Mário Nogueira managed to reach an agreement to lease the space and the process moved forward. “The deal we closed was to rent a warehouse, because when we arrived, there had been no coffee for many years. There was a project on the part of the landlords in the Chamber, but there was no coffee. We are now in the final stage of execution of the works and, when they are completed and inspected by the Chamber, it will issue the usage permit to our company», he said.
Nails, steaks, beers or snacks are some of the products that will appear on the menu at Cervejaria Aliança, a business model that proved to be the most suitable for that space, according to Mário Nogueira: «we studied several alternatives and the one that seemed most interesting to us was that of a Portuguese brewery. It is a popular concept that cuts across many countries and cultures. Beer is a product that has a strong implementation throughout the world, and in this concept of Portuguese brewery, we work with two or three products: steaks, beer and French fries. This is the “tripod” on which the brewery concept is based».
The sustainability of the space was also one of the factors taken into account for Aliança's move from coffee to brewery. «We do not believe that that space is financially viable as a company, being the traditional coffee that Aliança has always been: based on taps, glasses of milk, water, toasts, etc. It didn't seem to us that it was compatible with the need to monetize the space and there are already many people in downtown who offer this type of service».
Cervejaria Aliança wants to be an «accessible, relaxed and popular space. This is the concept we want to introduce in Aliança. However, due to the historical interest it has, we feel that we cannot vulgarize the space. There is a historical, cultural and architectural content of some dignity and everything you put in there must make sense. We didn't want to turn it into a tavern, full of tables. Everything inside, from the furniture to the concept, tends to make sense with the space», reveals Mário Nogueira.
Although Aliança has been closed for several years, tourists have not “forgotten”, which can be a good help for the business. «The itineraries continue to bring Aliança as a café to visit in Faro, and that's great for us. Tourists still arrive, with a booklet at their door, asking if they can see the oldest historic café in the city of Faro. Aliança is on the podium of the three oldest cafes in the country: there is Majestic [in Porto], Brasileira [in Lisbon] and Aliança, and it is an asset that has been mentioned».
Those who used to go to Aliança will recognize a lot of what coffee was like at the new brewery. «We took care to maintain the whole image that the café has kept since its construction. It continues to show its value, in its ceilings, in its entablatures and in the various details that define it as a special space», reveals Mário Nogueira.
Despite defining itself as a brewery, Aliança will be more than that and the goal is for this space to be a little of what it once was: «Alliance was many things: it was a dairy, it was a cafe and, especially in the last 20 or 30 years of coffee life, it was a space for political contestation, literary dissemination, civic intervention in the area of poetry, music, fado, theatre. We have photographs of Amália Rodrigues, the poet António Aleixo, Simone de Beauvoir, Zeca Afonso, who passed through Aliança. Furthermore, it was also a business space. It was the space where farmers set prices for carob, fig, or cork. It was a kind of exchange where prices for products were defined, and we wanted to recover some of those characteristics. We want it to return to being a popular space with a good weight in the area of dissemination of poetry, music, jazz, popular music (next year I want charolas at Aliança). as we say in slogans, that we have already started to spread, we want it to be the Heart of Faro».
Mário Nogueira clarifies that it will not be “a Hard-Rock Café, but we want it to have that aspect, that it will once again become a great meeting point for several generations in the city, with different cultural trends. Let football, fado, jazz, poetry pass, where lectures are given, a living space where generations intersect».
Despite this cultural aspect that he wants to implement at Aliança, the businessman emphasizes that «we cannot say that this is the space's number one function. It is a space to be managed by a company with the aim of making money».
Also for this reason, Mário Nogueira says that «people who dream that they will have Aliança as they used to, where each one goes for a coffee with the newspaper and stays there talking… obviously I won't chase these people away, but I won't. nurture, because they are not our typical customer».
For the businessman. It is important to “let go of the nostalgia”, because “anyone who wants to feel the space will feel it. It has the same revolving door, the same ceilings, the same photographs…», he concludes.
Alliance renewed by "space invaders"
If the business aspect is in charge of Mário Nogueira, the work of architectural restoration and decoration at Aliança was in charge of Space Invaders, an interior design studio based in Faro.
Ana Sequeira and João Paulo Fernandes were responsible for the architectural and design project and revealed to the Sul Informação a little bit of what this new space will be.
«What we did was to coldly analyze what would be necessary to replace, complete or innovate. There were things that had to be introduced», they explain.
According to the designers, «we are completing Aliança in a more historically based way, going back to the past and returning the truth that has been distorted over time, a little bit of the glamorous that he would have».
Despite the introduction of several new features, “there are many things that people will recognize, contrary to popular belief. Everything valuable was left untouched, and there was a lot of good stuff. The table bases are fantastic. They are tall, they are ergonomically wrong, they are more centimeters than they should be, but they are handcrafted iron, and this has been maintained and restored».
What was introduced, and which did not exist, was thought “with the greatest care and with respect to the memory that people have of the Aliança”.
According to Ana Sequeira, «you will understand what is original and what is new. Not that it's a contrast, because it follows the Alliance line, but it won't pretend it's old».
For João Paulo Fernandes, "if we do a good job, people who join the new Aliança will not be sure if it was already there or not".
The façade lion, which is now one of Aliança's symbols in the corporate image, has always been part of the space, but many people never noticed it.
“We looked for something that represented the essence of Aliança, what was different. The building is a project by an award-winning architect, Norte Júnior, who also built the Belmarço palace. This architect was always accompanied by a mason sculptor, the master Tomaz Ramos, who was an artist, and much of what we like about this architecture was made by him. The lion went unnoticed by many people and was the starting point for the image of Aliança, because it was a way of honoring a man who was never honored», reveal the Space Invaders.
In 1908, when the Aliança was built, local artisans undertook much of the work. Now, 108 years later, the strategy was the same. “We were looking for teams that were as local as possible. Most are from the municipality of Faro and surroundings. We wanted this to be part of this project and it defined a lot of Aliança's new personality. The locksmiths are from the area, the upholsterers are from the area… This is the spirit that has existed at Aliança since 1908».
One of the elements that will stand out the most in the new brewery is… the bread basket, and it is another example of how local artisans contributed to the project. “How many countries do you know that bring a basket of bread to the table? The bread basket is one of the most Portuguese things we have. Making the Alliance and not making a basket of bread was insulting».
This was designed by Casa Cubista, a company made up of two Canadians who moved from Toronto to Olhão, and fell in love with Portuguese crafts and culture. “They are now locals and their work resulted in that basket. It is a bread basket, made of nautical rope, purchased in Olhão, which shows the connection to the sea, from a land very close to Faro», concludes João Paulo Fernandes.
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