One Wednesday morning the phone rings. “I thought of a ‘barter’: a suspended coffee in exchange for a suspended book. Are you there?”. “Yes, let’s do it.” This is how the call went between Viviana De Giosa, owner of Atelier27, and Luca Catalano, owner of Caffè Portineria. Two conceptually and physically distant realities: one a bar-bistro, the other a clothing store; one in the center in via Roberto da Bari 58/A, the other in the San Pasquale district in via Pavoncelli 144, near Parco 2 Giugno. Two realities united by the attention to the ‘slow life’, the desire to restore to everyone the calm of the present and the care for the sense of community, sharing and exchange.
Thus was born, by chance, Viviana’s initiative with the collaboration of Luca, two minds in continuous ‘eruption’ who cannot disappoint. “The tradition of suspended coffee has its roots in the Neapolitan coffee shops of the 19th century, when coffee shops were places for meeting, discussing and sharing stories and ideas. The custom of suspended coffee has always fascinated me,” Viviana tells us, who decided to make this historic but often forgotten custom her own, proposing it in version 2.0. “I chose my favorite coffee shop, Caffè Portineria, I left twenty coffees suspended and twenty books chosen from the Atelier Bookshop.” Yes, because Atelier27 is not just a simple boutique: in fact it also presents a careful selection of books, the result of its “Book Swap” project, among the winning proposals of the 2022 edition of the municipal tender ‘A shop is not just a shop ‘, promoted within d_Bari to support the local economy. Hence, the possibility of offering this ‘goods exchange’. How does the swap between Concierge and Atelier work? Simple, Viviana explains it: “Just go to CaffèPortineria and order a suspended coffee from Atelier27; they will offer you a coffee and a random reading among the 20 books that will be ‘suspended’ for the month of May. You just have to take a photo of the coffee with the book and tag @atelier27 on the Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/_atelier27_/). After reading, the book must be returned to the Atelier Bookshop”. What are you waiting for?
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