Owner of Mercearia São Pedro opens a bookstore with a bar atmosphere, with beer, music and pastries

Near Vila Madalena do Metrô station, in the west side of São Paulo, a two-story townhouse illuminated by colorful lights is surrounded by wooden tables and chairs occupied by people and beer bottles. Nailed to the door, a handcrafted menu with colored pen and glitter suggests some options for belly lining. Inside, refrigerators share space with shelves filled with books for sale. A sound box plays songs by artists like Mano Brown and MC Serginho.

This is the intentionally informal atmosphere of the new Ria Livraria, which has been operating for a few weeks as a book store, café and bar, but which only officially opened on November 1st. The space marks, at the same time, a new phase and the end of the complicated recent history of Mercearia São Pedro — a bohemian stronghold in São Paulo whose fate has been uncertain since August.

The new Ria is in charge of Marcos Benuthe, one of the owners of Merca — a nickname given to the place by the habitues. Still in a legal dispute with Pedro, his brother and the other half of the bar’s society, Marquinhos, as he is known, decided to invest in his own place, but one that would take his favorite parts of the business he helped run in recent decades.

“In the beginning, the grocery store was also a movie rental store and sold books. This cultural side was always me who pulled it, and it was what also attracted the public who frequented the bar. So the bookstore is the ‘bastard daughter’ of the grocery store, a physical place that continues this cultural part”, explains Marquinhos, who says that “creating a bookstore that would be called a bar” is an old desire.

Thus, he joined partners such as writers Morgana Kretzmann and Ian Uviedo —who even attended the Merça as a child, with his mother— to set up a book curatorship for Ria. Now, the selection revolves around the thousand titles, but it should reach 5,000.

In addition to writer JP Cuenca, who took advantage of the opening of the Ria to make the face-to-face release of his new work, “Anywhere Less Now: Travel Chronicles for Times of Quarantine”, names like Jack Kerouac, James Baldwin, Patti Smith, Paulo Leminski and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sign some of the works for sale at the house, which also has a section dedicated to comics.

“Ian, who is our bookseller, brought a lot of stuff from independent publishers and also made a mix of the biggest publishers. We have a shelf of contemporary authors, many of them our friends,” says Marquinhos. According to him, the upper part of the house will still be dedicated to formats such as fanzines, in addition to hosting courses and reading clubs.

With regard to its pub side, Ria has employees who worked at the grocery store and who, according to Marquinhos, were fired by their brother during the pandemic. There are the chapeiro Antônio, in charge of the sandwiches, Penha, who made the disputed pastries at Merca, and the waiter Rodrigo. “It is an immense joy to have them back, to be able to work in partnership with people”, he celebrates.

Amid greetings from friends who were arriving for the inauguration of the new house, Marquinhos says he has no relationship with Merça anymore, which at the moment is played only by Pedro. “He prefers to stay there with the seedy bar about to close,” he says. “He took over the company for him and I thought ‘I’m not going to end life like I always was, submissive to my brother’.”

In August, Marquinhos said that the property occupied by Mercearia —which belongs to the family— would be purchased by the construction company Even, which would use the land for a real estate development. Brother Pedro denied that the bar would close and the construction company claims that there is no negotiation, but Marquinhos insists that there is a pre-sale contract and that he would even be receiving some advances for the sale.

There are still some lawsuits between the brothers in progress. On August 4, for example, the São Paulo Court ordered the sale of three other properties that belong to the Benuthe family — all located on Rhodesia Street, next to Mercearia.

In addition, there is a dispute over the use of number 30 on the same street Rhodesia, a place known as Annex, next to the Mercearia, and another process of dissolution of society. While this novel does not come to an end, the owner of the newest bookstore in São Paulo and his friends celebrate the opening. “To the victory of Marquinhos”, one of them toasts, with a glass of beer in hand.