Bar Filial is a shadow of the past in the middle of the melancholy and decadent Vila Madalena

Memory is treacherous, and using it as a benchmark can be cruel. Inevitable, however.

I arrived at the Branch knowing that my impressions would be confronted with the memories of the most important bar of my life, where I punched cards for a decade.

If I did the math for the money I left at the branch since 2000, when the bar opened, I would go into depression for having thrown my pension down the drain. But that’s ok: I’m a human, I don’t know how to calculate, so I don’t suffer.

In the first decade of this millennium, the Branch blocked the corner of Fidalga and Aspicuelta streets, in Vila Madalena, every night. I used to work at Marginal Pinheiros and I lived — I still live — in Perdizes, with the bar right in the middle of the road.

There were many nights when, returning from the newsroom, I would stop by the Branch just to have a “bizu”. If he didn’t have any friends there, he would follow the path of the countryside. But he almost always had.

The Branch was my class’ bar. From journalists, designers, photographers, people who worked with communication and art, but didn’t really know how to define their own occupation.

We sat down, received one beer after another without having to ask, we paid money to Dr. Sócrates at the next table, we stopped everything to listen to Yamandu Costa’s soup at the back of the bar.

We were expelled at dawn, with the chairs already piled up on the other tables, but not before the show by Lauro, my friend from Minas Gerais. He begged, begged, demanded a free nightcap. The waiter, eager to see us on the street, gave in and sent a round of beer, boy.

The food was good, nothing spectacular. Fried rice balls, bean broth with pork rinds, a delicious coxinha that was always cold in the middle. It didn’t matter. The important thing was the spirit of the bar.

The group was dismantled, as well as Vila Madalena, and I stopped attending the Branch. The bar went through difficult years, closed during the pandemic and reopened last year under the management of Fábrica de Bares – a group specialized in recovering traditional brands of São Paulo drinking, such as Bar Léo and Bar Brahma.

I feared that, reincarnated, the Branch would have the same fate as Leo and Brahma: the loss of personality, of spirit. Please keep quiet in my corner, but I came back somewhat reluctantly because the Guide asked me for this text.

When getting off the Uber, at 18:18 on Tuesday, I ran into Leandro, a friend from those days of the old Branch, at the only occupied table in the bar. Could it be an omen?

I joined him and the colleague who accompanied him. I ordered a beer (R$9.49), got an individual order and a fishtail glass. In other times, the beer came in the caldereta. The count of spilled cups was based on a chaotic pile of cardboard cookies deposited with each service.

Leandro and his colleague left, the two friends with whom he had arranged to meet arrived. Both, uncles from the time when the Branch was our first home.

The caipirinha arrived (R$ 18). Good. The coxinha also arrived (R$ 11). Crisper than the old one (panko empanada?), cold in the middle to keep the tradition, identical flavor. Supernatural. A competent barbecue with cheese on bread arrived (R$ 23.90), a giant and bland oxtail pie (R$ 27), a delicious portion of duck drumstick (R$ 48).

The menu of the new branch is signed by the talented Romulo Morente, from the bar Moela. The food isn’t worse than it used to be, maybe better, but it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we weren’t in the same bar.

The interior has been minimally modified. They kept the stone-topped tables, the checkered floor, the cartoons and the old advertisements on the wall.

On the windows that lead to the kitchen, on the way to the bathroom, they stuck inexplicable motivational phrases from a popular decoration store. “Eating is a necessity, cooking is our passion.” Af.

The waiter who served us, Café –Áureo Café Paixão, what a beautiful name, my friends!–, was friendliness in person. Here’s a point where the new Branch connected to its history: the loving service.

The rest, and I don’t just mean the bar, doesn’t help much. We were the only customers until 7:45 pm, when two other tables arrived simultaneously.

“But it’s Tuesday and it’s early,” one of the friends argued. “But here it was pumping every day, all the time”, we counter-argued the other friend and I. What can I say on a hot February night.

Across the street was Genésio, which the branch’s owners opened to accommodate the surplus clientele. It served passable Italian food. It had the same spirit, the same vibe as the sidewalk in front. Now it’s a frankly inferior bar, one of those with a permanent double caipirinha promotion.

We walked through the lonely streets of the village to have a nightcap at Empanadas, which was equally melancholy.

The conversation turned to nostalgia. We talk about how we were run over by time. All of us. The Branch. Vila Magdalena. The three friends. Two fifties and one getting there. Marcos, Renato and Ricardo. Three dated names that now christen half a dozen babies a year, at best.

The Branch of my memory is not there. It’s not the Bar Factory’s fault or anyone else’s.

It’s just time taking things away. Inevitable