Café con piernas

Front of Café Gazú, café con piernas in Santiago de Chile

Café con piernas (Spanish for "coffee with legs") is a coffee shop style popular in Chile where the service staff are attractive women dressed in revealing clothing.[1] Coffee shops with waitresses serving in miniskirts and heels to businessmen had long been popular, but bikinis and similar attire accelerated the trend by the mid-1990s. The shops are very numerous and popular in Santiago.[2][3][4][5][6] It is frequently noted that the shops seem to contradict the traditionally conservative culture of Chile.[7][8]

A more conservative café con piernas in Santiago, December 2010

Generally, the women walk on a raised catwalk behind the bar so as to maximize the view for patrons.[8] In establishments at street level, the waitresses wear short skirts and high heels. At those in underground shopping centres, where the staff wear swimwear, they are mostly migrants from other countries and often lack the paperwork needed to allow them to work legally. The cafes have been subject to allegations of prostitution and workplace harassment. In response, numerous Santiago mayors have passed ordinances restricting the operations of the cafes, requiring them only to open during the daytime, not to sell alcohol, and to have their windows tinted.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Gallardo, Eduardo (13 October 1998). Coffee With Legs' Offends Some Chilean Sensibilities, Kentucky New Era (Associated Press)
  2. ↑ Flinn, John (12 February 2006). Out on a limb for coffee with legs, San Francisco Chronicle
  3. ↑ Chong, Kevin (28 May 2010). Santiago: A city with legs, Toronto Star
  4. ↑ Heather Murphy (September 17, 2008). "A Little Skin With Your Latte?". National Public Radio. Retrieved March 9, 2010.
  5. ↑ Adam Fuller and Jason Snyder (August 1, 2008). "CAFÉ CON PIERNAS: GOOD 'TIL THE LAST DROP". The Santiago Times. Retrieved March 9, 2010.
  6. ↑ William Sanzana C. "Café con Piernas: ¡Qué Sabor!" [Coffee with Legs: What A Flavor!]. Chile.com (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 18 July 2011.
  7. ↑ Ossa, Felipe (5 May 2000). Cafes ... with legs, Salon.com
  8. 1 2 (12 August 2003). Cafe With Legs Sizzles In Uptight Chile, Philippine Daily Inquirer, p. A1, A13
  9. ↑ Bartlett, John (11 April 2023). "'Coffee with legs': inside Chile's risque and antiquated cafe culture". The Guardian.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.