It has been open since 1939, at Rua dos Capelistas, in Braga, on the corner with the so-called Campo da Vinha. Now, 81 years later, with the covid crisis, customers are becoming scarce in grocery store The Colonial.
“I am open from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm and only four or five customers come in,” said O MINHO, its owner, Eduardo Marques.
The trader blames, for the fact, the traffic cut made at the time of the municipal management of Mesquita Machado – who stopped passing there – and the absence of residents in the area, driven out by the high prices of rent or the purchase of a house in the historic center . The historic center is now mostly occupied by restaurants, cafes and bars and shops, with few residents resisting
The business, which has been in the hands of his direct family for 65 years, lived on regular customers, on those of many years ago, and on the many tourists who demanded archbishops city before the pandemic: “we have new clients, but also some of the third generation of families who have always come here”.
In the past, Campo da Vinha was the location of the city’s weekly fair, which brought people in bard to the grocery store: “Today, we specialize in dried fruits and table wines, especially Porto, and we are, too. , like a convenience store ”, he explains.
In addition to the absence of cars, even in passing, Eduardo Marques criticizes what he says are the high prices of the various car parks in the center, and stresses that even the lowest price now implemented for parking in street parking meters – operated by Transport Urban (TUB) is not enough to attract people.
“In Braga, even to visit a patient at the Hospital, the park is expensive”, he laments.
In addition to the grocery store, Rua dos Capelistas is open to only the Central Pharmacy – a victim of the same desertification – and banks in the area.
House encourages
Miguel Bandeira (right). Photo: DR / Archive
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Contacted by the way, the City Councilor for Urbanism, Miguel Bandeira agreed with the diagnosis made by the shopkeeper, but stressed that, with the pandemic, little can be done: “the traffic will not return and the Municipality has no capacity, although the want, so that the historic center will have many residents again ”, he stressed.
The mayor said that, now, to support trade and restaurants in the reopening of activity, the Municipality is preparing an incentive program, allowing, for example, the expansion of the terraces.
He says that “it is very difficult to predict the future of commercial activity”, whether in the old part of the city, in other areas, or even in large areas, suggesting, for this, that the so-called traditional trade continues in the line of modernization that has been following: “Rua dos Capelistas is central in urban terms, so commerce has to continue to assert itself due to its differentiation in terms of the quality and exclusivity of the product it offers”, he stresses.
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