The story of Es Gallet: the hippie oasis that shaped La Palma in the 1970s

Palm"There are two cities in our lives that are very important: the one we learn about with our parents and the one we discover when we go out on our own. The first of these cities had a bar, Es Gallet, as its center." This is how writer José Carlos Llop remembered this establishment on Puig de Sant Pere, in Palma's seaside neighborhood, which opened its doors in 1971 and was only open for a little over a year. But that time was enough to become a legend.

The bar was the shared creation of four friends: Climent Picornell, Frederic Suau, Mariano Salvà, and Pep Ventanyol. None of them came from the hospitality industry, but they shared the desire to create a unique space in a city still subjected to the gloom of Franco's regime. Walking down Sant Pere Street one day, Picornell and Suau discovered an old fishermen's winery, Bodega San Pedro, with a handwritten sign reading "For Lease." Inside, they were greeted by an elderly Ibizan couple, Eulàlia and Toni Marí Marí, a retired sailor.

The four friends transformed this Gothic space—with its semi-pointed arches, exposed beams, and a corral that jutted out against the Renaissance wall—into a place with its own soul. There were three steps leading down, perhaps a metaphor for entering another world. The bar, made by themselves, and the plaster seats completed a handcrafted and welcoming aesthetic.

The name of the bar, Es Gallet, provoked more than a few sly smiles. In good Mallorcan, 'gallet' is a colloquial synonym for the clitoris, but according to Picornell, the origin was much more literary: it came from a reading by the Russian formalist Viktor Sklovski. "If after betraying good Jesus, Saint Peter didn't get up when he heard the rooster, it was because it was a small rooster, a trigger, and he didn't hear it," wrote the author. The intellectual irony and the play on double entendres fit perfectly with the spirit of the place.

During that year, Es Gallet became a meeting point for a young, nonconformist generation: writers, painters, models, musicians, and long-haired hippies. Palma had never seen anything like it. In the 1970s, the Bruselas bar had also opened, but it was a bohemian bar, the cultural movement that preceded the hippie movement. With Es Gallet, Palma embraced that motto of "love and peace." Good music played, freedom was in the air, and conversations mingled with liquor, ideas, coffee, and also panadas and other specialties from a nearby bakery. These were Franco's times, but Picornell explains that although he and Suau had been arrested "as subversive figures," the bar went beyond ideology.

The bar was so successful that its owners barely knew how to run it. "It was a profitable place, but we lived it like a common man," he explains. With the profits, they rented a stately home on Can Canals Street—which later became the studio of Enric Irueste and Miquel Barceló—and another in Sant Elm, by the sea and overlooking Dragonera. They even bought motorcycles, driven by the myth ofEasy Rider, and a Canadian van with which they would travel around Europe after selling the premises.

The end came unexpectedly: one day, three Englishmen offered them a succulent amount for the transfer. "They offered us an outrageous amount and we said yes," says Picornell. But the first day the new owners opened their doors, no one came in. The clientele was loyal to the former owners, and the magical charm of Es Gallet had vanished. "I felt bad for them, but it was done," he comments.

Despite its short existence, Es Gallet left a deep mark. Lobo dedicated a chapter to it. In the submerged city under the title 'When the city became a barThat basement on Puig de Sant Pere was, for a moment, the center of a Palma that was beginning to awaken from its slumber and discover freedom through music, words, and coexistence.

The bar responds:

What music used to play?

— Californian music, James Taylor, Van Morrison, The Birds and Bob Dylan.

What drink was most requested by customers?

— Coffee with milk with the cakes from the oven in front of me.

What would you say was the brand of the bar?

— We had a poster that parodied the song House of the Rising Sun from The Animals where you could read The House of Rising MallorcaIt was a bar for furry friends where people exchanged books and often brought the music they wanted to listen to.

Any anecdote that makes you laugh when you remember it?

— The first customer ordered a café con leche and a cognac and left without paying. He did it so casually that we didn't go after him. It probably gave us luck. On another occasion, 20 enormous US Marines suddenly came in and started bothering the customers, and we couldn't get them out. I don't know who thought of going to get the Military Police. Three of them showed up. jeeps of US Police who shouted "private club"they threw them out.