Paulo das Bifanas

There are even those who order the first bifanas of the day at this ungodly hour. Current favourites for conversation are, of course, the tolls on the Via do Infante.

“Everyone’s upset”, explains Paulo – one of West Algarve’s businessmen who knows the infamous EN125 that crosses the Algarve only too well. His clients all regale him with their woes.

One neighbour from Porches who works at Faro Hospital has been complaining about the €80 in toll payments she’ll be spending to use the motorway – while another who rents cars nearby is going bananas with all the fines and bureaucracy involved. Over a hurried lunch, João Luís Santos, 44, a fruit salesman from Pêra, has no time to spare.

He has to take a load of marjoram to the Alentejo. He tells us how his fleet of six trucks can spend up to €200 a day in tolls. “And the consumer is the one who’ll be paying”, he says. Unused to alternative routes, he’s now trying to find ways new of avoiding the motorway.

Paulo Correia laments the times. When the sun goes down, he considers the trade he has left. “At the back, I can see traffic passing on the A22. While 20 or 30 pass by here, only 2 or 3 travel along the Via do Infante”.

In the good old days – even though he spent 11 years of them in another place a little further towards Porches - he managed to sell around 220 bifanas a day.Now he’s lucky to average out at 30. “All this has been really bad for business” he explains.

“Before when there were crises, people still stopped to eat. Now they all leave home with packed lunches and snacks”. Yet for as little as €1.60, you can eat a bifana at Paulo Correia’s, with a glass of wine for just €0.80 and a bica for €0.60. To spice things up, we’d recommend the “hairs-on-your-chest” piri-piri he stocks: “barba rija”…

Specialities: bifanas; Hours: Monday to Saturday, from 7am to 10pm.