Broke but ambitious in Barcelona.

July 16, 2008 5:42 AM

I've just finished business school and have landed myself an internship at a very respectable multinational company in Barcelona, Spain. The internship is great, the salary dreadful. So, I'm now in a position where I can barely afford to live and need to find something else to suppliment my income. Can someone give me an idea of what formalities I need to address in order to sell food in the streets of Barcelona?

I work just six hours a day so I have plenty of free time and I'm warming to the idea of starting my own business. I have identified a possible business opportunity centering on selling a very easy to prepare, mouth-wateringly delicious South American dish at night to drunken revellers. All I need from a purely logistical perspective, as far as I can tell, is a mobile barbecue, food and a few cooler boxes. I don't want to have any problems with the law, however.

I would be really grateful to anyone who could explain exactly what legal obligations I must fulfil before I can be legit. Also some indication of the probability of being able to do this would be also appreciated. I've already found out the hard way how spirit-crushingly obsinate the Spanish bureaucratic behemoth can be.

I'd welcome any informed suggestions but also ideas from anyone at all as to how I could feasibly make honest money in this city.

posted by Zé Pequeno to work & money (9 comments total)

I know next to nothing about Barcelona working rights, but I know some street musicians that were playing all around the south of Spain. They were saying that in almost every major city, they could play with no problems from authorities or the law. It was legal and fine for them to perform. But in Barcelona, there was a rather large license that they required the musicians to purchase, something in the ballpark of a few thousand Euros. This is hearsay, but I would at least make sure you look into all aspects before you start up. If musicians are charged that much, I would imagine the vendors would be paying more.
posted by wile e at 6:04 AM on July 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

If you have an internship I assume you must have a work permit. If you have a work permit then you should have no problem getting a legitimate second job as a bartender or camarero. BTW, the internship should be for a set amount of time like 6 months after which the company should offer you something full time?
posted by JJ86 at 6:22 AM on July 16, 2008

My friend who lives in Madrid is in a similar situation. She supplements her income by doing some freelance consulting on the side (she has a degree in industrial design, although that's not what her primary day job has to do with). She finds these side jobs on the internet. Is this an option for you? Since you are a business school graduate, can you do some consulting for small time businesses on the side?

When she first got to Madrid, she would supplement her income teaching English, but that doesn't pay nearly as well as the freelance consulting. Teaching English, may however, pay more than selling food on the street (although I'm not sure; Barcelona is much more touristy than Madrid). Are you a native English speaker? There is also some demand for Italian teachers (another one of my friends in Madrid teaches Italian to businesspeople; she has a contract with a couple big companies).
posted by bluefly at 6:22 AM on July 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

i. Selling food on the street sounds a bit dodgy, I know, but I seriously think that I could make more money doing this than working for somebody else. I was struck when I got here by how few places there are to eat after a certain hour here and I was thinking of the possibilities of running five or six of these things in the city. It's just an idea at the moment, anyway. Compared to bartending, for example, which surely cannot pay much considering how low salaries are in general here in Spain, I think this would be better.

ii. Consulting suggestion duly noted; I'll look into it but it's difficult, I should imagine, getting someone to trust you when you have no experience other than text books.

iii. I've thought about the English lessons idea and I was even poised to post a question on Mefi asking for ideas for creating an 'English for Business' course. Maybe next week ;) I also speak fluent Portuguese but there are so many Brazilians here that I think I can rule this one out straight away.

Thanks for all the ideas posted so far. Keep 'em coming!
posted by Zé Pequeno at 6:35 AM on July 16, 2008

Have you checked out with Generalitat de Catalunya's business offices? Commerce is under GdC's jurisdiction. There are also a couple of sites online from gencat.cat > 1 2 but my català is nonexistent, so I can't tell if the first one has any advice relevant to you. Good luck.
posted by ersatz at 7:23 AM on July 16, 2008

I'm gonna recommend what I always do to bilingual (trilingual? are you one of those freaks who speaks 50 languages?) people, like yourself, who are looking for a side gig - translation. If you can do oral interpreting, that's even better, and jobs are widely available on the internet, all over the world. Or maybe sign up with an agency as a freelancer. Google it, you'll find gazillions of classifieds, agencies, freelancers, and relevant info. It's one of the easiest professions to get into, the barriers to entry are non-existent as you're posting here from a computer, and the only questions of legality that arise are of income taxes (which, though I don't necessarily recommend it, I should point out that it's your choice to report or not).

Since I've learned Mandarin, and I'm a native English speaker, I've never been short of job offers. There are ALWAYS people who need something translated, and if you've got the skills and let it be known that you're willing to use them, and you're punctual the first few times around, you'll be rolling in it before long. :) Investigate it, you might even find yourself considering an actual career in it!

Teaching, while it's a good sideline and makes you some ready cash, is exhausting and time-consuming if you don't have a natural disposition for it. It's also not something you can really put on a resume. Translation, especially if it's related to your future career, most definitely IS, and it stands a much larger chance of earning you references and contacts than teaching English or other unrelated sidelines.

And, for the record, I've also sold food on the street, although only once or twice. My friend and I made a grill and decided that we were going to go out and sell kebabs one day, a very common street food here in Beijing. We got chased from place to place and had spent the better part of two days preparing the marinades. At the end of the day, we made back the amount of money we'd invested in the FOOD, about $35, and that only because we found a bar willing to take us in and let us grill out in front. Fun day, but I don't see a career there. :) If you decide to go that route see if you can find a small, kitchen-less bar in a busy area that will allow you to use their space, and maybe provide you with stools and chairs. C'mon by and taste the American's strange concoctions. The only other time I did this was when we took our grill and networked with a charity, when our rate of return was about the same. They brought the people and provided the space, we showed up with the food and donated a percentage of the profits. We gouged, so we broke even.
posted by saysthis at 7:27 AM on July 16, 2008

Especially if you're trilingual (assuming you speak Spanish, and guessing from your location that you know Portuguese), combined with having finished business school - well damn, that's a recipe for translation capability if there ever was one.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:08 AM on July 16, 2008

Will you have access to a washer/dryer? I found it shockingly difficult to find coin-op laundry while visiting Spain. Hotels charge by the piece and it is incredibly expensive. None of the locals seemed to know where to find a laundromat, and the few who gave me directions ultimately directed me to dry cleaners (admittedly there was a language issue, but the problem was much deeper).

Not to mention that during siesta all the storefronts have identical metal doors with no indication as to what type of business they are nor when they will open again.

I don't know whether you want to be in the laundry business, but if you could offer tourists an easy way to get a clean load of laundry you could charge quite a bit. I'm not sure how you would get the word out.
posted by reeddavid at 11:40 AM on July 16, 2008

> I was struck when I got here by how few places there are to eat after a certain hour here

To use MBA-speak, Efficient Market Hypothesis suggests there's probably a reason for this. Maybe: Over-regulation? Insufficient demand? Not enough interest in cooking? Too many other good opportunities for local entrepreneurs?

The key is to figure out why, and why you are positioned to succeed where others haven't.

When I lived in Cambridge, MA I was struck by the lack of late night food places in Harvard Square. The situation was so bad we would trek miles to go to Buzzy's 24h roast beef stand across the bridge in Boston -- a food stall named for carrion-eating buzzard, if that tells you something. Anyway, some buddies and I looked into it. Turns out getting a restaurant license is really hard, and a permit to operate late at night was almost impossible.
posted by CruiseSavvy at 1:08 PM on July 16, 2008