There are some places in Tenerife that were more than just cafés.
You went there for breakfast, a sandwich, a coffee or a chat, but somehow ended up spending half the afternoon putting the world to rights. La Laguna had plenty of them, although sadly, many have disappeared over the years.
Café Castillo was one of those places.
Better known as El Pipeta or Las Tortillas
Located on the corner of Herradores and Núñez de la Peña, Café Castillo opened in 1944.
Most locals, however, knew it by other names. Some called it El Pipeta. Others simply called it Las Tortillas, which probably tells you everything you need to know about what many people went there for.
Inside, there was a U-shaped bar and a small seating area with square wooden tables. Nothing particularly fancy, but that was never really the point.
During the colder La Laguna evenings, merchants from La Carrera and Herradores would gather there for a hot chocolate and some laguneros pastries.
For generations of locals, it became part of everyday life.
Breakfasts, tortilla sandwiches and long conversations
For one former regular, El Pipeta had been a familiar place since his school days.
Later, as an adult and businessman, he continued going back for breakfast, snacks, tortilla sandwiches and, perhaps most importantly, the conversations that seemed to last longer than originally planned.
Then, one afternoon in the mid-1980s, something rather unexpected happened.
José Luis López Vázquez walked in.
The legendary Spanish actor was standing at the bar, quietly waiting for a cortado and enjoying some of the café’s popular tranvías pastries.
Apparently, nobody else had noticed him.
At least not until he was pointed out to Pepe Gámez, who happened to be a big admirer of the actor.
A famous actor, a cortado and a sweet potato rosquete
When Pepe approached him, José Luis López Vázquez couldn’t have been more friendly.
They chatted, he asked about the local pastries and eventually tried a sweet potato rosquete while standing at the bar.
For a while, he wasn’t the famous actor everyone knew from Spanish cinema.
He was simply another customer in El Pipeta, having a cortado and a chat.
Those are the moments that make these old cafés interesting. You never quite knew who might walk through the door.
The end of an era
Café Castillo finally closed in 2009 after more than six decades serving locals.
The premises later became a Bimba y Lola shop, although that too has since moved on.
Pepe Gámez is gone. José Luis López Vázquez is gone. So is Luis, the owner of El Pipeta.
And, like many of the old gathering places in La Laguna, the café itself is now just a memory.
But memories have a habit of keeping places alive, at least for a little while.
For those who remember El Pipeta, it wasn’t simply a café on a street corner. It was breakfast before school, tortilla sandwiches, endless conversations and, on one memorable afternoon, a legendary Spanish actor quietly waiting for his cortado.
Not bad for a local café.