Els Quatre Gats

Els Quatre Gats is a historic cafe in Barcelona, Catalonia, that opened on 12 June 1897 inside Casa Marti, a modernist building designed by the architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch. It was founded by Pere Romeu, who modeled the venture on the Parisian cabaret Le Chat Noir where he had worked, with financial backing from the modernist artists Ramon Casas, Santiago Rusinol and Miquel Utrillo. The cafe became a central gathering place for the Barcelona Modernisme movement and counted Pablo Picasso, Antoni Gaudi and Isaac Albeniz among its patrons. It closed in June 1903 after financial mismanagement by Romeu, including extending credit freely to artist friends, but was restored and reopened to the public in 1978 and fully rehabilitated in 1991.