Cafés La Mexicana

‘The shop that sells the most coffee in the world’

In the late 19^th century, Dolores Levil Biel, a Mexican woman with Spanish ancestry, travelled to Madrid to discover her parents’ homeland. She fell in love with the city and decided to stay and open a small coffee shop in Calle Preciados, which came to be known as ‘La Mexicana’. The coffee she sold was supplied by José Rodríguez, grandfather of La Mexicana’s current director, who started out by roasting coffee in the courtyard at his home. The two entrepreneurs worked together for many years until José took over the business, which is now in its third generation. In the 1970s, José’s son Juan Carlos began to expand the business. His efforts were so successful that long queues of people could often be seen outside the red shop in Preciados, breathing in the fragrant scent of the coffee as they waited. In 1990, the shop was listed in the Guinness World Records as ‘the shop that sells the most coffee in the world’.