Barbara: Not Just A Bar

Talking about serendipitous coincidences and Saint Barbara at the new place in Hafnarfjörður

I knew Barbara was Hafnarfjörður’s new it spot, but I was still surprised to find the bar/coffeehouse/restaurant fully packed at 19:00 on a Wednesday evening. After braving the queue and fighting for a table, a coincidental bumping into my partner’s parents gave us the answer to why the place was full to the brim on this particular night: there was an Amy Winehouse tribute concert happening across the street in just an hour.

Barbara, a new establishment at Strandgata 9, joins the history of this stalwart house in Hafnarfjörður; it is the oldest concrete house in the town, and the former site of legendary bar Súfistinn, the combined Mánabar/Einar’s barbershop, a tyre repair shop, among other businesses.

They’ve just been open just a month, but given the vibe of this Amy Winehouse evening, they’re already succeeding in becoming what co-owner Sigurður “Siggi” Halldór Bjarnason describes as “a community-driven space that feels like it could have been there for a long long time.” The spot is owned and operated by Siggi, his partner Katla Karlsdóttir and their relative Pétur Orri Ingvarsson. “The idea of a community-built café and bar in Hafnarfjörður had been with us for years, so when we heard that Súfistinn was closing its doors, we felt a strong pull to bring our vision to life,” explains Siggi.

Serendipitous coincidence

Súfistinn closed in January, and the three behind Barbara acquired the space soon after, spending months on renovations and decoration (I even heard a rumour that it was necessary to paint the walls because they were stained from the days when you could smoke inside Súfistinn).
“Barbara feels like an extremely curated version of Góði Hirðirinn.”

After thoroughly renovating the interior, all eyes turned towards decoration. The space has a warm and colourful ambience, and Barbara feels like an extremely curated version of Góði Hirðirinn (which I learn later is actually right on the nose — Katla sourced a significant portion of the decoration there). Paintings adorn the walls, all in different styles, which lets you feel like you are drinking your coffee or a beer in a maximalist art collector’s living room.

“The furniture and art were all handpicked by Katla, with most pieces being secondhand finds. Some were discovered through patient searching in markets, while others came to us through almost serendipitous coincidences,” says Siggi. What serendipitous coincidences were encountered, I ask? “One of them came through a tip about an old storage in Reykjavík that held furniture from a ferry that had been broken down at the shipyard years ago. Hidden under decades of dust we found Swedish-designed chairs and tables originally built for the ferry’s restaurant,” says Siggi.

“Another moment came when Katla walked into a small shop and started talking about our project,” he continues. “The woman working there said she had something special in the back — a beautiful sideboard she had imported from India over 20 years ago, built out of old advertising boards. It felt like it was made for the house.”

More than just bar snacks

The spot is open from morning until night, even boasting a 01:00 closing time on Fridays and Saturdays. With this, they join the ranks of Reykjavík spots such as Kaffibrennslan or Kaffihús Vesturbæjar, where a daytime coffee shop turns into a bar by night, all while offering food throughout.

Barbara’s menu is full of expected staples: grilled sandwiches, cakes with whipped cream, waffles. But they also provide a few less common offerings: schnitzel with capers and potatoes, and a soft pretzel served with cheese sauce or hummus, both of which I tried. The pretzel is a solid bar snack (best accompanied with a beer), but on one’s own, the two pretzels they serve alongside the plate of hummus could easily be eaten for lunch. As for the schnitzel, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of capers they doused the dish in — it looked like they used about half of the container you can buy at the grocery store.

What’s in a name

When I first heard of Barbara, I was curious about their choice of name. Originally, I assumed there would be some joke of it being “bar, bara,” basically meaning “just a bar.” But of course, Barbara is not just a bar, and Barbara’s name came from much more than that.
“Barbara feels as though it was always meant to belong here.”

“From the beginning, we knew we wanted a woman’s name — we thought of the house as a welcoming woman that everyone loved to visit. We searched widely, even using a baby-name app to browse Icelandic names and narrow our favourites down to a list of 10–20,” Siggi says.

“Not long after we had made our decision, we had a wonderful discovery: a tiny statuette of Saint Barbara found in the ruins of a chapel in the Kapelluhraun lava field in Hafnarfjörður. Excavated in 1950, the statuette is considered one of the oldest figurines of a woman ever found in Iceland,” he explains. “After that we learned that the women’s association in Hafnarfjörður has Saint Barbara as their emblem. This connection made the choice feel almost inevitable.” Another serendipitous coincidence for Barbara. Siggi concludes from all this that “Barbara feels as though it was always meant to belong here.”

The outdoor deck (formerly a tire work station) cleared out a bit when the doors to the tribute concert opened, and we enjoyed the sun, bright against the Barbara emblem painted on the side of the storied house, marking Strandgata 9’s newest chapter.

Barbara is now open in 220 Hafnarfjörður. Follow @barbarakaffibar on Instagram to see the menu and find their opening hours.