MASSA-CARRARA. Once upon a time there was a bar, the meeting place par excellence where you can sip a cup of Espresso or nibble on a sandwich: in the 80s, if you got up at dawn and rolled up your sleeves, you bought a good blend of coffee and you had ( even just) a pinch of inclination to listen to the customers, the proceeds were assured and the failure of the enterprise was a more unique than rare possibility. Since then the world has changed: and even in the bars the winds of crisis have begun to blow. In the province of Massa-Carrara between 2019 and 2023 the dust settled on 69 counters, that is, it closed 9.1 percent of the bars between the Apuan and Lunigiana ones out of a total of 689 companies carrying out this specific activity: this is the data contained in the Economy Report edited by the Institute of Studies and Research of the North-West Tuscany Chamber of Commerce. It is a national phenomenon, so much so that a survey by Fipe Confcommercio estimates that from 2019 to 2023 the Belpaese has lost 20 thousand of these historic venues which have their roots in the most pop Italian style.
The map From the coast to Lunigiana, anyone will think of the name of a bar that has turned off the coffee machine. In Massa, for example, the Bar del Teatro in via Bastione which had closed, then reopened and has closed again for some time or the legendary Arpagaus (which was also a pastry shop. In Carrara the Caffé I Girasoli in via Aronte, a stone’s throw away from the post office; in Marina di Carrara the Gracy bar are examples.
The rivalry The causes of the closure remain to be understood and are not unique. First of all there was the increase in competition: in the pre-Covid pandemic years there were also many openings in the province of Massa-Carrara, and also of bars and cafés halfway between bars and restaurants. So the bartender had to start juggling varied breakfasts, dishes and salads, cocktails and various treats, entertainment to continue to attract the customer: in short, to diversify the offer, to renew itself compared to the classic model of the cup of coffee and/or the glass of Prosecco. Not everyone has succeeded – also because achieving the objective requires not only skills and abilities but also investments – and after the explosion in the number of activities, we are now witnessing the tailspin.
Inflation Another co-cause is the corrosion – in the last three years – of the purchasing power of families, who are forced to save even on croissants and cappuccino. Let’s suppose that before inflation was galloping, the purchasing power of the Apuans was a thousand euros and let’s suppose that there were 10 bars: each, in theory, had a portion of customers worth 100 euros; if with inflation the purchasing power drops to 900 euros, and at the same time the bars from 10 become 15, the market share of individual companies is eroded.
Not only Competition and inflation are the macro-causes but behind the closure of a bar there may also be a lifestyle choice: it is a very tiring job – it mostly involves, according to Fipe, seven days a week and for an average of 14 hours a day – because the bartender is forced, also in light of the rising cost of electricity and gas, to seize all the opportunities for cash: breakfasts, lunch breaks, late afternoon aperitifs that fade into the evening.
And nowI know? According to experts, the closure of bars is now a reality phenomenon, it is not yet disruptive but must be kept under monitoring: for now it was the bars that saved the life of the historic centers while the fixed retail trade has been producing shutters for a long time lower. Again according to insiders, the businesses that have closed are mostly – but there are exceptions – marginal ones, with a weaker identity, which have not managed to keep up with the evolution of consumption models. Last fact, the transformation, the “conversion”, one could say, from bar to restaurant does not seem to have occurred: the latter in the Apuan province are 1,016 and between 2019 and 2023 by 1.9%, or 19 new chefs who they got to the stove, according to data from the ISR’s 2024 Economy Report.
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