Voces del Prado

1895: The Origins of Casa Macarrón

Ángel Macarrón Serrano, Transportation of Works (Casa Macarrón), 1937-1939

My grandfather worked in a drugstore that sold imported products. He had a customer he really loved and whom he became great friends with, don Mateo Silvela, who was the brother of Francisco Silvela (whom the street is named after), and his father was a powerful man. Don Mateo Silvela painted and, one fine day, he told my grandfather “I’ve just seen an establishment”. He’d been on at my grandfather for years to set up his own establishment. He wanted to see if he could go out on his own. He told him “I’ve got something you have to see; let’s see if you like it”. And it ended up being our shop. He said “Look, I’ve had an idea, Ángel: why don’t we become partners? You’ll be the working partner and I’ll provide the capital”. And that’s what they did. That was how things were done in those days; you shook on it and you became partners.
And just consider the bad lack that my grandmother and grandfather had. My father didn’t know his father, because when my grandfather died, my father was only eight or ten months old. My grandmother was very special to us, because when she became a widow, she kept the business going. She called my grandfather’s partner and said “look, we have to sort this situation out”. And he replied “we don’t have to sort anything out; you can continue in the place of your husband, because the boys are already helping you a little, the older ones, so you don’t have to give anything up. If one day you want to give me a little money to pay off your debt, then you can do so. But there’s no rush for you to do that with me”. And that was how Casa Macarrón was born.