Club Pollença

Behind the terrace tables sits a nineteenth-century mansion on Carrer del Mercat, its entrance hall built around an imperial-style staircase, that became the club's home after it moved on from Ca'l Lloro. It has been more than a cafe for most of that time: a library and lecture hall opened here in 1912, and the club staged one of Mallorca's earliest art exhibitions in 1920, photographs by the Pollenca photographer Guillem Bestard. Painters and musicians associated with the club over the decades read like a roll call of the island's early twentieth century scene, among them Hermen Anglada-Camarassa, Dionis Bennassar and Tito Cittadini. A concert staged here in 1960 is credited with leading to what became the Pollenca International Music Festival, now one of the island's major cultural events each summer. Even through the Franco years the club held enough independence to run Catalan-language classes, starting in 1967. Today the auditorium built in 1964 still hosts events, while out front the terrace does what any Placa Major cafe does: pour coffee, pour wine, and let the market square go by.