The oldest grocery store in Europe
In few places does one have a feeling so patent that time stopped a century ago. Crossing the threshold of the door The trust , we discover the living definition of a groceries.
Those stores specialized in bringing products from the former Spanish colonies that took this name or that of "colonial".
The trust stands out for being a business in which practically nothing has changed since it was founded and for this reason it claims to be the oldest in Europe. Because, although there may be longer-lasting stores, there is no evidence that any of them have remained intact for more than a century.
This type of grocery store, which still survives in some cities, has frequently been modernizing and replacing its emblems, such as the marble counter or the wooden shelves.
Initially the Trust it was a haberdashery , but in a few years it incorporated products that were imported from overseas into its offer.
Located in the so-called Plaza del Mercado and later renamed Plaza López Allué, La Confianza has been open in Huesca since 1871 without interruption , not even in the Civil War did it stop serving its customers.
La Confianza, the oldest preserved grocery store in Europe
The nose does not deceive us: it smells of coffee, the mixture of many spices and cod. Everything is in sight. almost everything is shipped in bulk , as it seems to be fashionable again. and using the word "pack off" we touch one of the pillars of this store: its current owner, María Jesús Sanvicente
A charming woman with a lifetime behind the counter that offers closeness in the treatment of all those who enter its establishment. She tirelessly informs, advises and promotes all the quality products she sells. Especially those produced in the province of Huesca: sweets, chocolates, cheeses or wines.
María Jesús diligently handles the cod cutting guillotine while she recounts details and anecdotes from her grocery store. “Trust is a service, not a business” repeated the father of María Jesús. Several years ago a review of Ultramarinos La Confianza appeared in the New York Times.
"It reminds me of the stores of the american west , where you could buy anything, from a bar of soap to a rifle,” the journalist commented to the owners with amazement.
On the ceiling, frescoes with motifs alluding to trade signed by León Abadías
Among the old posters that still adorn the walls we look at a Grand Chartreuse mirror ad, a distillate from Tarragona whose factory closed thirty years ago.
When the eye has already traveled the shelves and the objects perched on them, it is diverted to the ceiling. There you can see several frescoes with motifs alluding to trade signed by León Abadías , Huesca painter of the 19th century who had as a disciple in his drawing classes the Nobel Prize in Medicine Santiago Ramon y Cajal.
La Confianza has been open in Huesca since 1871 without interruption
It's also original the floor, composed of beautiful hydraulic tiles a thousand and one times scrubbed by María Jesús “on her knees when she was young and then with the mop”, she tells us.
Thousands of customers and thousands of tourists from all over the world have passed over them. Confidence is a tourist attraction in the city of Huesca.
How little La Confianza has changed... and how much everything else has changed
La Confianza is also a store that preserves like few others the typical taste of Christmas. The colored lights create a unique atmosphere and its decoration at this time highlights its nineteenth-century appearance even more.
Thousands of children have glued their icy little hands to its large shop windows to admire the automaton dolls or the little trains that incessantly go through snowy villages.
Many people from Huesca preserve the tradition of go every Christmas to La Confianza to buy nougat and Christmas sweets. Many have been doing it all their lives.
tells us Victor Villacampa , son of María Jesús and continuator of the business, that in La Confianza they are already preparing the one that will be the 150th anniversary of him in a couple of years. Almost nothing.
If its founder Hilary Valier Raise your head, I couldn't believe how little your store has changed… and how much everything else has changed.
La Confianza has been open in Huesca since 1871 without interruption