1 · Position
It opened on 20 June 1980 in Sant Antoni de Portmany, designed by the architect Lluís Güell, facing the western sunset. José Padilla's sunset sets began in 1991 and he compiled the first six volumes of the albums that carried the name off the island.
2 · ⚑ Why it is in the Library
Guests asked to take the atmosphere home, and the bar sold it to them. Cassettes at the end of the 1980s, CDs through various labels from 1994, its own label from 1999, and about nine million albums since. No hotel, restaurant or club in this register has managed to package the experience of being in the room and sell it at scale to people who were never there. Since September 2020 it has streamed the bar and its webcam continuously — the same trick, made free and permanent.
3 · What this model does not solve
A place that sells its own atmosphere invites everyone to it, and the crowd changes the atmosphere. The compilations also outgrew the bar: for most of the nine million buyers Café del Mar is a genre of music rather than an address in Sant Antoni, which is a strange fate for a hospitality business and not obviously a good one. ⚑ Sources give the founding as 1978 and as 20 June 1980; the entry follows the bar's own date and records the discrepancy.