The smoking ban is one of a few changes the cafe has seen in the past fifty years.

The cafe apparently had a sound system once—a painted-over speaker is still visible in one of the walls—but, according to Brennan, legend goes that Yangcras dismissed the idea of music in the cafe after playing just one side of a record.

Perhaps the most notable change was the first female waiter was hired in February 1999.

The waitstaff had, until then, followed the Spanish model—which Yangcras says does not hire women to work in high-end restaurants. At Pamplona, the waiters still wear a black-and-white uniform with a tie that is typical in Spain.

Jennifer A. Follen, the first woman hired, said she “shrugged it off” when her boss warned her that people might be taken aback by her presence.

“I didn’t think anyone would notice that it was a girl and not a guy,” she said.

But Follen had underestimated the strength of tradition.

“Everybody noticed,” she says, relaxing with a cigarette on the patio after her shift. While other women have been hired since, Follen is currently Pamplona’s only female waiter.

“Some people’s reactions were through the roof. But some of the women were cool. They’d say, ‘Oh, I tried to get a job [at Pamplona] before,’” she said.

However, it is the cafe’s most recent change that makes Yangcras proud.

During the summer, she introduced a tapas menu—considerably expanding the food options available. Previously, hungry patrons had a choice of only one ham, cheese and pickle sandwich, the media noche.

“I wanted to have tapas from the begining,” Yangcras says.

Her initial attempts to expand the menu were unsuccessful, however, because her desire to serve sangria was stopped. The cafe is located too close to a church to be granted a liquor license.

Now, instead of alcohol, she will offer Sanbitter, a typical Spanish soft drink that is extremely bitter, as the name implies.

“I’m 85-years-old, and I am going to have my dream of having tapas,” Yangcras says with a smile.

—Staff writer Eugenia B. Schraa can be reached at schraa@fas.harvard.edu.