Lisa & Daan(35)

Daan and I had a lunch café in Almere-Centrum for five years. Business was fine, but margins were razor-thin: high rent (€3,200/month), staff shortages, rising purchase prices. When we saw a beach restaurant for sale in Begur on the Costa Brava during a holiday, we looked at each other and knew.

Taking over a hospitality business in Spain is legally complex. We set up a Sociedad Limitada for €2,800 including gestoría costs. The licencia de apertura — the operating license — cost €1,200 and took six weeks. You also need a licencia de terraza if you want to serve outside, and that differs per municipality. In Begur the municipality was cooperative because we were taking over an existing business.

The restaurant — La Caleta — has 40 seats inside and 60 on the terrace. The rent is €2,000 per month including kitchen equipment. We serve Catalan cuisine with a Dutch twist: Manchego cheese croquettes, bitterballen with sobrasada, and our signature paella that we learned from Daan's Spanish sous chef.

Finding staff was easier than in the Netherlands. We have four employees on a contrato fijo-discontinuo — a seasonal contract that's common in hospitality. The minimum wage in Spain is €1,134 per month for 14 monthly salaries (yes, in Spain you get paid 14 months). Social contributions for employers are high — about 30% on top of gross salary — but total costs are still lower than in the Netherlands.

Revenue is seasonal: from June to September we turn over €45,000 per month. In winter that drops to €8,000-12,000, but the Costa Brava also attracts winter tourists for hiking and culture. We only close in January. Net after all costs we keep about €4,500 per month on average over the year.

The best part: we live where others go on holiday. Our daughter Fenna (3) is growing up on the beach. We swim during lunch break, walk to the cape of Begur after closing time, and eat fresh fish that the fishermen bring in each morning. The bureaucracy was intense — the Agencia Tributaria, the inspección de trabajo, the modelo 347 for large transactions — but our gestoría in Girona keeps track of everything. It was the best business decision we ever made.