Fifteen Minutes: A Strange Brew at Pamplona: Waiters Wanted, Women Need Not Apply

Established in the late 1940s, Cafe Pamplona has been an arty haven for tortured souls of Cambridge for over 50 years. Offering authentic southern Spanish cuisine and potent coffee concoctions, the Pamp, as the regulars affectionately say, brings cultural flair to Cambridge. Flaunting a pastiche of old world southern Spanish design and industrial chic, the one-room subterranean establishment boasts cement walls accented by hot water pipes suspended from the ceiling. Small black lacquered tables clutter the single-roomed cafe as tortured writers sit enraptured in their favorite author's prose. In the back kitchen, two or three waify waiters lounge around the underground den in the standard uniform of black slacks, white button down shirts and skinny black ties. But coffee isn't all that's brewing at Cafe Pamplona. According to one Pamplone waiter, the Pamp's owner doesn't hire female waitresses--regardless of applicants' resemblance of waif-like males.

The reasoning for the all-male crew may lie behind Spanish tradition and cultural constructs. "It is true that there has never been a female worker here--except for maybe a woman who washed the dishes and helped to cook in the kitchen. It is because when Josephina [Cafe Pamplona's owner] came to America in 1947 from Pamplona, Spain, there were no female waitresses in all of Pamplona. So it is strictly a cultural thing. Cafe Pamplona is somewhat of a theme restaurant, and Josephina wants to make it as authentic as possible."

Today, those supposedly authentic waiters sport goatees and multiple piercings. Also on the check-list for boy applicants: a tragic and distraught look in the eye.

But in the process of preserving cultural authenticity, the cafe's owner is offending the American spirit of equal opportunity. Amanda L. Burnham '01, a frequent patron of Cafe Pamplona (and a Crimson executive too), became privy to this bias first-hand while looking for a job last spring. Burnham attempted to apply for the serving position advertised in the cafe's window. Though she did not talk with the owner herself, the waiter that Burnham spoke with told her that she shouldn't even bother applying.

"I really liked the atmosphere and thought it would be a cool place to work, but the waiter told me that the woman who owned the place wanted to preserve the atmosphere of a cafe in Spain and didn't accept applications from women," says Burnham. She says the waiter was apologetic regarding the bistro's rigid policy but, nevertheless, he neglected to give Burnham an application.

"He kept saying, 'Don't worry about it. Yeah, just don't even bother worrying about it.' It was like they were shutting the door in my face without even giving me a chance. I was pissed, but I found a different job on campus that paid more money so it worked out better for me in the end," Burnham says.

Despite an apparent partiality towards male waiters at Cafe Pamplona, legal repercussions probably aren't looming in the Pamp's future. Equal Opportunity Employment laws have loopholes for theme restaurants.

Take Hooters for example. Third-year Harvard Law student Sharon M. McGowan explains that "Hooters sells food, but it also sells sex. Since they admit to selling sex and that is their main theme, they have the right to only hire female wait staff. Generally, though, when these defenses are posed to a judge they look upon them unsympathetically." The loopholes are there, but the courts make it a tough argument to support.

According to recent Let's Go researcher-writer, Holly E. Fling '01, there is indeed an overwhelming percentage of male wait staff in current day Pamplona. However during her travails, Fling did patronize a small, privately owned, vegetarian restaurant where a woman took her order and brought her food. So it seems as though even the city of Pamplona has made exceptions to the rule. Josephina, take notice.