Dining outdoors in Spain: From popular custom to neighborhood protest against mass tourism and the privatization of public space
Residents across the country are mobilizing to claim back their cities by sitting down to dinner in streets and squares
Taking out a table and chairs and sitting in the street to have dinner in the fresh air with friends, family or neighbors, especially in the hottest months of the year, has recently assumed the character of protest in several parts of Spain. As cities and municipalities are increasingly stressed by mass tourism and public spaces are progressively privatized, the option of being on the street to socialize free of charge has become akin to a revolutionary act by locals aiming make their demands visible.
Among those making an impact this summer are the Mallorcan collective Brunzit, which filled Palma’s Plaza Mayor with people dining al fresco on August 19. This dinner was christened Sopars a la Llesca — eating al fresco in Catalan — which they have been organizing since the summer of 2025 to flag up the fact that the city’s spaces can also be inhabited by the people who live in it. In this collective event, there are not only beach coolers, folding tables and plastic chairs but also music, dance, poetry and games. It is part of a wave of demonstrations and protests that have been taking place in recent years in Mallorca against mass tourism.
In Valencia, where the residents of the maritime districts usually dine al fresco in the summer months, locals have recently mobilized in the face of a threat to this popular custom. “This summer, a hotelier criticized people going out to the Paseo Marítimo to dine because they left a mess which looked bad for the tourists,” explains Pau Diaz, a member of the Veïns Amics de la Malva neighborhood association, one of the five that convened the great sopar a la fresca protest on September 5 on the Paseo Marítimo.
In view of such statements — made after the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, announced the plan to reform the waterfront, which will include the renovation of the promenade — several associations in the maritime districts began to mobilize to make it clear that public spaces belong to the citizens. “The promenade does not belong to the hoteliers, it belongs to the people and to everyone who wants to use it,” says David Verdoy, president of the Veïns Amics de la Malva association. Verdoy says that dining al fresco has been done in Valencia by locals “all their lives” and they never had any problems with the hoteliers before. In fact, he knows that many hoteliers do not even agree with the statements that triggered the neighborhood protests.
The local laws on the use of beaches and adjacent areas in Valencia do not ban outdoor dining. The only reference to food regarding these laws has to do with the leaving of waste and the regulation of the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Addressing the controversy, the Valencia City Council announced that it has no plans to restrict the use of public spaces for picnics. “Neighborhood associations need to be aware that this is the case,” says Diaz.
Diaz also stresses the importance of al fresco culture: “These are spaces that neighborhood associations reclaim within the context of an increase in mass tourism,” he said while pointing out another reason to defend the custom. “We are in a moment of climate crisis and it is necessary to look for spaces where we can be cool. In these seafront districts, there is energy poverty and not all homes are air-conditioned. So there are vital factors at play other than coexistence and the occupation of public spaces by citizens.”
In Madrid, this August, the Lavapiés neighborhood also hosted an outdoor dinner during the San Lorenzo festivities. On Dos Hermanas Street, a long table was set up covered with a colorful polka dot tablecloth where neighbors sat down to feast on what they had brought to the gathering. The Lavapiés al límite platform was behind the event which brings together several groups united “in the face of the alarming institutional abandonment of the neighborhood”, as Lucía López, one of its members, explains. “It seems that they want us all in our homes, so we do not protest against the fact that the city is increasingly hostile, with fewer places for meeting and citizen participation,” says López, who adds that residents feel they are being robbed “even of the popular fairs.” The result has been the slogan: “Without neighbors there is no verbena [fair]” and the launch of the Lavapiés al fresco dinner.
The dinner is actually one of a series of actions that the platform carries out once a month to “recover the public space as a place for neighborhood meetings,” either through demonstrations, games in the street, or planting trees. It was not the first time that an outdoor dinner had taken place in Lavapiés. The Vecinas a la Fresca collective had already organized similar activities in its streets and squares, such as neighborhood competitions using seasonal vegetables for making snacks, tortilla, gazpacho, and tapas in 2023 and 2024. “In those cases, we did not formally request authorization as we did for this summer’s dinner, so the police always ended up coming, because apparently we were super dangerous wielding our tortillas,” López says.
During the dinner in August, the platform organized a “neighborhood bingo” testing participants on how well they knew the area. “It was a way to get to know each other, to talk and enjoy ourselves. And it was a wonderful, glorious, incredible night,” López recalls.
Getting to know your neighbors
“The potato omelet is always a hit at these dinners,” says Diaz from the Associació de Veïns Amics de la Malva, who says that the idea of these al fresco feasts is to bring things to share. “Potatoes, breaded meat, maybe a ratatouille...” he says. “Very interesting dynamics are generated, which have nothing to do with the commodification of public spaces. For us that is one of the keys, because we are committed to the common good but also because shared food tastes better.”
Lucía López remembers how wonderful it was to see the residents of Lavapiés go down to the street with their plates and lunchboxes. “There were even those who brought a fideuá dish in a frying pan,” she says. The diverse cultures that inhabit this Madrid neighborhood were also at the table: “There was food from Bangladesh, from Senegal... The Panifiesto bakery gave us the bread, the La Barra Dulce pastry shop the dessert. That is, the merchants, the fabric of the neighborhood, were also involved in this dinner,” López adds.
López is clear that sharing food in a place like Spain, where people usually meet to eat and drink, is a way of creating bonds and community. “The fact that each one brings something generates conversation,” she says, adding that in the days after the dinner, many people talked to members of the association about dinners al fresco they remembered from the past. “There’s nothing like being on the street and having a drink with your neighbors. There’s no better plan,” she says.
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