La versión en español está después de la versión en inglés.
IN MY RECENT WANDERINGS AROUND town (well fairly recent; I’ve been avoiding the afternoon heat and humidity), I was in the center of Fuengirola. It’s about a 25-minute walk from our neighborhood and much of it has the look of a contemporary small city as opposed to a beach resort.
The first time I roamed the city in 2013, I came upon the tourist office which is surprisingly different from everything around it. It turns out it was the original city center train station. There was always a station here in Los Boliches, as well, and that was redone again just a few years ago.
Between us and the city center, the train has since gone underground and, from above ground, the new station, which is now a bit further from us and on the other side of the street (although it wasn’t a street way back when), is nothing more than a red and yellow sign and enclosed escalators and stairs. I found two photos from 1906. What a difference 114 years make.
ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT, we have decided to stop going to one of our favorite restaurants in town. Don’t worry, we still LOVE Mesón Salvador. There was another restaurant with a very different menu that had exceptional food and service. But, over the years, we’ve seen our favorite people, managers and staff alike, leave under unpleasant circumstances, usually because they stood up (calmly and rationally) to workplace abuse. It happened again last week to two wonderful professionals, and we’ve decided we can no longer support a business where one of the owners is so abusive and unappreciative of their exceptional staff. And I do mean exceptional. (And I DO mean abusive.) I won’t go into more detail. I don’t care how good the food is, no restaurant deserves business if the staff aren’t treated respectfully. Mesón Salvador is much more deserving of our recently more limited dining out funds.
AND ON A HAPPIER NOTE, Maraca Man (click here) was back on the beach — this time as the Little Drummer Boy. Pa rum pum pum pum (on the air drum).
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EN MIS RECIENTES RECORRIDOS POR la ciudad (bueno, bastante reciente; he estado evitando el calor y la humedad de la tarde), estaba en el centro de Fuengirola. Está a unos 25 minutos a pie de nuestro vecindario y gran parte tiene el aspecto de una pequeña ciudad contemporánea en lugar de un complejo de playa.
La primera vez que recorrí la ciudad en 2013, me encontré con la oficina de turismo, que es sorprendentemente diferente de todo lo que la rodea. Resulta que era la estación de tren original del centro de la ciudad. Siempre había una estación aquí en Los Boliches, y eso fue renovado nuevamente hace unos años.
Entre nosotros y el centro de la ciudad, el tren se ha vuelto subterráneo y, desde arriba, la nueva estación, que ahora está un poco más lejos de nosotros y al otro lado de la calle (aunque no era una calle atrás cuando ), no es más que un cartel rojo y amarillo y escaleras mecánicas. Encontré dos fotos de 1906. Qué diferencia hacen 114 años.
EN UNA TEMA COMPLETAMENTE DIFERENTE, hemos decidido dejar de ir a uno de nuestros restaurantes favoritos en la ciudad. No te preocupes, todavía amamos a Mesón Salvador. Había otro restaurante con un menú muy diferente que tenía comida y servicio excepcionales. Pero, a lo largo de los años, hemos visto a nuestras personas favoritas, gerentes y personal por igual, irse en circunstancias desagradables, generalmente porque resistieron (con calma y racionalidad) al abuso en el lugar de trabajo. Le sucedió nuevamente la semana pasada a dos maravillosos profesionales, y hemos decidido que ya no podemos apoyar un negocio en el que uno de los propietarios es tan abusivo y no aprecia a su excepcional personal. Y quiero decir excepcional. (Y quiero decir abusivo). No voy a entrar en más detalles. No me importa lo buena que sea la comida, ningún restaurante merece negocios si el personal no es tratado con respeto. Mesón Salvador es mucho más merecedor de nuestros fondos para cenar.
Y EN UNA NOTA MÁS feliz, el Hombre con las Maracas (haz clic aquí) estaba de vuelta en la playa, esta vez como El Tamborilero. Pa rum pum pum pum (en el tambor de aire).
Such a pretty place, and good call on the business that mistreats staff.
David:
We choose restaurants based on food, service, and the welcome and warmth we experience. The staff here were so wonderful. He’s lost or fired the best we’ve known. I feel for those forced to stay there.
ANY business that treats its humans nasty DESERVES to lose the public’s $$$.
interesting photos of the train station; good that it has been repurposed.
anne marie:
I agree with you about abusive business owners. Such a shame. Great food. Great space. He has done this a few times since we’ve been here. The service goes down the tubes for several months. This time, however, he has no long-term senior person to step into the management role. I walked by several times during the week and he looked miserable. Karma.
I’m probably missing the point of this post (what a surprise, huh?), but I do love a good phallic fountain, and with horses yet!
Too bad about the instrument switch. Maracas are so much more freeing than air drums.
Good on you for refusing to dine at that restaurant. You and SG are good people, Scoot 🙂
Deedles:
Oh crap, my posts are now supposed to have a POINT?!? We feel good about our decision regarding the restaurant. The exceptional manager already has a great new job. The drum sticks were kind of weird. I listened and listened but couldn’t hear anything.
my favorite entries of yours are ‘pointless’ keep them coming.
Love train stations–especially old ones. Was lucky enough to have traveled on trains all over Europe and UK in the 1950/60s–many old steam trains (e.g. Flying Scotsman-London to Edinburgh), ones with individual compartments w/doors and long side corridors/different sleeper trains. Hanging (almost) out windows as we rolled through the gorgeous scenery of places like the Italian and Swiss Alps. Even a sleeper train from W. Germany through E. Germany to W. Berlin not long after the Berlin Wall went up–with East German gun-toting soldiers boarding periodically to make sure no E, German was hitching a ride to escape. Memorable days. As a kid in the UK, I was probably one of the only US girls to sit on a railway overpass with British boys–all of us tracking the rolling stock in our trainspotting notebooks.
Hope the abusive restaurant owner has to close his doors. Bullies deserve to pay the price. Hope the staff are able to find other work.
The beach guy is a walking one man band…just one instrument at a time.
Mary:
I do, too. I especially love when they’re renovated and still in use. I’ll have to share photos of Málaga’s main train station. It’s a great space although completely contemporary. However, the original buildings still stand out front on the plaza. Very cool.
Great photos. So interesting to see what changes a day wbat doesn’t.
Good grief – the typos in my first comment! That should read “what changes and what doesn’t. ” I will be happy when I get my new computer in about 5 weeks or maybe even my old one repaired in about 3 weeks.
Wilma:
A day wbat typos?
Love the train station.I always love when they save an old building rather than tear it down.
And good on you for taking a stand, and walking out the door!
Bob:
I love it, too. There weren’t a lot of buildings here years ago. They’ve saved some, but I wish a few others special ones had been saved… the public markets for example. Our neighborhood market building is nothing more than a contemporary stucco box. The central one is a huge monstrosity and ugly inside as well.
I love all things train! Stations, trains themselves…great photos. Good that you don’t support a business that treats its employees unfairly and abusively.
mcpersonalspace54:
I love train travel. So hard to imagine (for me) what it would have been like way back then. Yeah, we miss the food and the nice people who are still there, but we are satisfied to not support the owner in his behavior. Hope to have the opportunity soon to tell him.
Good for you for refusing to patronize a restaurant where the servers are treated so poorly. I would do the same thing. I love the train photos.
Jennifer:
I love imagining what it was like here before tourism… and even before Franco. What a different world. As for the restaurant, I’m really grateful for the support of our decision.
I am glad you have made the decision to walk away from that restaurant. It is a terrible thing to be bullied in your workplace.
Here I am just over a year from my last terrible experience of that kind. There are still small reminders. My other half still works in an office in the same building. He went in there to get lunch once and she was just awful to him, so I told him never to go there again!
He is working from home at the moment, so I thought I would not have any further reminders.. but my old workplace collects packages for *his* workplace when nobody is in the office.
Last week a package was refused by my old workplace, and thus a frantic ringing around was done by the couriers – in the end it was delivered here because we are the closest to the depot and the office.
I knew the beyotch who was so nasty and abusive to me was the one who refused delivery because it isn’t a problem at all when the other people are there to receive the package, and I thought.. she is still holding a grudge against me – and my other half – and my other half’s workplace – after a year? When all I did was to walk away from her abuse?
I simply don’t have time to hold such grudges. I wish I did, I can hold a grudge better than anyone else I know! But I simply do not.
Always when I see staff bullied I wish there was a way I could fix it – really the only way is to stop spending your money there. If possible to let them know why, that can be helpful, especially if it were a staff member doing the bullying, but if it is an owner that is never going to change. They won’t ever see what they are doing is wrong.
Snoskred:
I hope this didn’t stir up unpleasant memories. We feel really good about our decision and do look forward to the opportunity of telling the owner why we’re not coming anymore — although I don’t think it will make a difference in his behavior. All departing staff tell him the same thing and he tells all of them where to go. By the way, it’s really good to see you here! Hope all is going well for you during these challenging times.
It’s too bad they didn’t have inexpensive, and thus more commonplace, color photography back in 1908. Black-and-white has its charms, but you tend to forget that it’s not how people actually experienced the world back then.
Kirk:
So true. And this is Southern Spain. There was always a lot of color.
Oh, I do love a good historic photo!
Judy:
So do I. Mesón Salvador has a wall filled with them. I could spend hours looking at the details.
You’re absolutely right about the restaurant — they don’t deserve your business if they mistreat their staff. It’s so interesting to see the train station in that historic picture. Fuengirola must have been a wildly different place that long ago. (Before Franco, even!)
Steve:
It’s such a shame about the restaurant. But we feel good about our decision.
Yes, the idea of those times before Franco. I can’t even imagine. And, the population of Fuengirola at that time was around 6,000. It’s now around 75,000.