we popped into this cafe for breakfast since it was close to our hotel for the evening…read more apparently, at 0800, most businesses are still closed, including cafes and coffee shoppes! we did notice that most things in spain do open on the later side, and in granada, the sun did not even rise until a bit after 0800, so i guess everyone is still sleeping at that hour!
we were fortunate that this cafe was open a bit after 0800 and the gentleman who owned the cafe was very warm and welcoming. although he didn't speak a word of english, we were able to order breakfast with our few words of broken spanish and pointing to the pictures on the wall.
hubby ordered a ham sandwich and i had a sandwich with spanish tortilla, tomatoes, and cheese. we both had orange juice to drink, which was apparently freshly squeezed since we saw the little machine behind the counter. the sandwiches were good, toasted, warm, and filled well, and the orange juice was definitely very fresh and naturally sweetened. i did feel that the bill was a bit high though, closer to €14, a bit much for 2 sandwiches and 2 drinks.
since we couldn't check into our hotel yet, and no one was around to take our luggage, we just hung out at the cafe for an hour or so, figuring out what we wanted to see in granada and making plans for our 24 hour stay in this city although we didn't speak spanish, we did copy a few questions on paper (thanks to google on our cell phone) and showed them to the gentleman who very kindly answered them for us with "yes" or "no" responses.
more customers eventually filed into this cafe, so the gentleman had to take care of them in between answering our questions, but as we walked out, we thanked him heartily for his help. just before we stepped out, he put his arms around both of us and invited us to his cafe for breakfast tomorrow morning. i only know this b/c i knew the words "mi casa" and "manana" and i was greatly touched by this gesture, but unfortunately had to decline b/c we had a train to catch the very next day. somehow i got the words for train and 9am so that he understood we had an early morning.
although we could not see this kind gentleman again the next day, we really appreciated his kindness, his efforts, and most of all, his warmhearted demeanor. should we ever find ourselves in granada again, we would most definitely stop by his cafe for another breakfast or coffee. he is deserving of an A+ for customer service.
