The Shop
The Glória Bar, better known as the Piri-Piri Bar, was opened in 1942 by Manuel Cisneiros Ferreira. He had run quite a successful bar in Maputo, then known as Lourenço Marques, called Piripíri, which is now a grilled chicken restaurant. When he arrived in Lisbon, he wanted to keep the old name, but it was already taken.
With its long counter, chairs and stools upholstered in red, low lighting and more intimate, dimly-lit snugs – at one time fourteen women worked at this bar. Today there are still four, together with the manageress Maria Amélia Martins, who opens the door to regulars and the occasional inquisitive visitor, people from all walks of life and professions, most of them men. She is the first to admit that her bar is often a kind of psychologist’s practice or a confession box, that many guests just want to “pass some time and have someone listen to them complaining”. The business may be based on the sale of drinks, but what really brings the customers is the search for a cure for loneliness.
