Here You’ll Find the Cheapest Coffee in All of Italy

We don’t have to tell you that Dutch coffee prices are scandalously high compared with Italy. For an espresso in an Italian bar, you can still pay between 1 and 1.50 euros with a broad smile. But our colleague Minne from Italiamo knows: it can be even cheaper.

The Cheapest Coffee in Italy

In the town of Alia, part of Sicilian Palermo, a bar pasticceria has deliberately kept its prices lower than low for sixty years. The motto: ‘Better to lose money than customers’. And that means you pay 30 cents here for an espresso made with love, 40 cents for a macchiato, 60 cents for a granita, 70 cents for a corretto and one euro for a cappuccino. A glass of water is included, as is table service.

857 Cups of Caffè

When Bernardo Perrone opened his Bar Pasticceria Rosticceria Perrone in 1960, he already wanted to be the cheapest in the wider area (if not the entire country). An espresso cost 20 lire at the time, one-third of what it cost at other bars in the area. There was a marketing idea behind it: he hoped the low prices would draw customers into the shop, where they would then also succumb to the cornetti and other treats from his pasticceria. The coffee was certainly a resounding success: the Perrone family currently uses 6 kilos of coffee per day, which amounts to 857 cups of caffè.

A Plan Is a Plan

So what about rising personnel costs, higher purchasing costs and the other financial misery weighing down the hospitality industry? Perrone has just one employee; otherwise, it is still entirely a family business. The founder’s 93-year-old wife works in the bar, as do her son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. They do not pay rent, because the building is their property and home. Before the coronavirus pandemic, they calculated that an espresso cost 17 cents in ingredients and electricity. Those costs have since skyrocketed, but they refuse to pass them on to their customers. ‘We refuse to abandon my father’s brilliant idea,’ says son Giuseppe. ‘Raising the prices by 40 or 50 cents wouldn’t change anything anyway.’

Read also:

• Hey coffee lovers! Do you already know caffè d’orzo?
• Why do Italians drink so much coffee?
• Barbajada is Italy’s most delicious coffee—and here’s how to make it

Source: Today.it, Italiamo