The historic “Peret” kiosk is one step closer to opening again. The Local Governing Board gave the go-ahead to give the contract to run the classic ice cream shop on La Explanada yesterday, Tuesday February 17th. The cafe was established in 1916 and stayed open until April of last year, when it closed.
Hotel Boutique Isla Tabarca SL won the contract because it had the best score from the six bidders. Luis Castillo, who is the head of the Alicante hoteliers’ organisation, co-owns this company. It already runs the hotel on Tabarca Island, the beach bar in La Albufereta, and the kiosk in Plaza Músico Óscar Tordera.
The contract lasts for seven years, and the winning bidder must pay a total of €4,023,523.38 throughout that period. This figure is broken up into equal payments for each year, with the first year getting at least €541,212 and the last year getting at most €609,492.62. The contract also lets you extend it for two more three-year periods.
The company has 10 business days to make the contract official. After that, it promises to start offering the services within three months at the latest. This means that the new “Peret” should be up and running by the beginning of June at the latest.
The steps
On January 28th, the City Council made the final decision to give the contract for the kiosk on the Explanada. After the City Council asked Hotel Boutique Tabarca SL (the company that made the best offer) for more paperwork to prove that it was financially sound, it was unclear who would get the contract to run the new “Peret” kiosk. The paperwork that had been sent so far had not been enough. In the first week of December, the City Council’s Contracting Committee met to check the company’s bid’s financial ability.
The paperwork the company sent was not enough for the city workers to determine whether it was financially sound. So, it was decided that the Castillo brothers’ company would have to give more information about the work they did. They had three business days at the most to give more information, such exact dates and itemised sums, before the contract could be awarded.
Finally, at the end of January, the Procurement Committee decided that the company’s technical and professional skills were good enough, as long as they got one more document: confirmation that they had paid their corporation taxes. So, the contract was recommended for award to Hotel Boutique Tabarca SL, but only if they could show confirmation of this. The Local Governing Board may then finalise the award if the Tourism Board verified the presented documentation.
Bidding war
There were seven offers for the concession, but one was turned down since it didn’t follow the rules of the competition. Hotel Boutique Isla de Tabarca SL had the highest financial offer of the six accepted bids.
The joint venture Sensai Restauración SLU and Mundaka Helados SL (€3,213,123.30), Lunetoile Ocio 9 SL (€2,720,947.72), Nicolás Romero Vargas UTE (€2,003,333), Café Ole&Friends SL (€1,839,985.14), and Ondiba SL (€1,293,565) came next. The concession included a basic cost of €1.26 million for the first seven years. It may be renewed up to two times for three years each. The first year will start with €170,000 and end with €191,447 in the seventh year, which is a 2% increase per year.
Cristina Cutanda, the Councillor for Public Space Occupancy, said, “Alicante is close to getting back an iconic ice cream shop that is in a famous building that is part of our personal and collective history.”” Cutanda went on to say that the system “requires that the concession holder work with artisanal products in order to keep the traditional activity going there for many decades.”
A historic place that went under because of debt
The firm that used to run the ice cream shop owed the local municipality more than €130,000 since they didn’t pay the terrace licence and the concession charge on time. Additionally, its former workers are asking for more than €200,000 in back wages and unpaid salary. There are already a number of final court decisions that recognise the obligation owing to the former Peret employees.
The City Council tried to end the contract with the kiosk owner in May 2024 so that they could give the business to someone else. The owner said he wanted to pay off his debts, but he didn’t, so the Council went forward with the eviction. The Consell Jurídic Consultiu of the Valencian Community had to send a report, which came in July 2024. It was delivered to the University of Alicante by mistake instead of the local government, so the municipal administration didn’t start the process again until January 2025. This is what caused Peret’s kiosk to close in April of that year.
Since the start of the last century, however, Peret’s history has been tied to that of Alicante. It opened its doors in 1916, during World War I, when a royal decree gave Vicente Richard Ballester the right to set up a refreshment kiosk in what is now the Explanada but was then called Paseo de los Mártires. This name disappeared from the street names after the Civil War and was later used again for the road that runs between the Explanada and the port.
A few weeks later, a man called Pedro Fuster Iborra, who sold nuts on the street and was known as “Pere the Peanut Man,” offered to buy the kiosk. Vicente Richard said yes. From then on, the business started selling candies, nuts, horchata, soft drinks, and other things like that.
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