The priest Lezama takes over the Senate hospitality service: menus at 8.6 euros and coffees at 1.1 euros

The priest Luis Lezama, through his subsidiary Mesa Real de Gestión y Servicios de Meidas (Grupo Lezama), it has been redone with the succulent Senate catering services contract. The price will be 1.15 million euros (VAT included) for a duration of three years with two possible annual extensions, according to the Official State Gazette (BOE).

The contract includes the start-up and maintenance of the cafeteria and restaurant service, including take away service. Here we can find the menu of the day at popular prices. Specifically, at 8.6 euros (with VAT). Includes first and second course, dessert, bread and drink.

Separately, water has a cost for senators and workers of the Upper House of 1.25 euros; soft drinks, 1.45 euros; and coffee, 1.1 euros. Rates, all slightly higher than those offered in the cafeteria of the Congress of Deputies, as published by Invertia.

The technical specifications of the contract also refer to additional services, which are those provided in meeting rooms and offices, in institutional dining rooms and other spaces where formal events are held, and include official lunches, receptions and cocktails, coffee breaks and water and coffee services. And finally, the vending service, which includes a soft drink machine, coffees and snacks.

As for additional services at receptions, there are three types of cocktails: one of eight different appetizers and drinks (12.40 euros per person); another of 14 appetizers (20.65 euros) and another of 18 (36.15 euros). On the other hand, lunches officers range from 16.5 euros per person up to 77.4 euros if they are gala.

Lezama Group

Behind the winner of the contract (Grupo Lezama) there is the priest Luis Lezama (1936), who hung up the habits in 1974 (although he took them back in 2006) to dedicate himself to restoration. He created as an independent way of life for his young guests (while he was a priest) a bar-restaurant in the heart of Madrid in front of the Royal Theater of Madrid, La Taberna del Alabardero.

Then came the famous Café de Oriente (1983), in the square of the same name in Madrid, in front of the Royal Palace. In April 1989 he opened a Spanish restaurant with the name of Taberna del Alabardero in Washington DC and, later, founded the Higher School of Hospitality and Tourism of Seville.

It also owns other catering establishments such as Iruaritz, Taberna del Alabardero de Madrid, Resthotel Escorial, La Botillería del Café de Oriente, El Aljibe del Café de Oriente, El Obrador del Café de Oriente and Taberna del Alabardero.

In addition, he has a degree in journalism from the University of Madrid in 1976. He worked at Ser y la Cope; and was a correspondent in the ‘Six Day War’ in Israel, where he was injured, as detailed on the group’s website. He also received a diploma in Management and Planning from the Lausanne School of Hospitality (Switzerland) in 1982.

Back to his life as a hotelier, Luis is an expert in offering this type of restaurant services as he did at the Ibero-American Heads of State Summit (1993). Nor is it the first time that he has won the public catering competition for the Senate; although it is probably the first time that you see clauses in the contract for possible situations similar to the confinements caused by the pandemic.

Contingency plan

Thus, the contract includes clauses such as that the successful bidder must present “A contingency plan”. It would be for cases like, “due to a health emergency, or for any other cause beyond the Senate and the contractor, the provision of the ordinary catering service in the cafeteria, the self-service and the restaurant is prevented ”.

And it adds that, in such situations, a catering service of individualized breakfast, lunch and dinner packs must be provided, in the numbers requested by the General Secretariat, in order to guarantee a minimum service of parliamentary activity, as well as their transportation with all hygienic-sanitary guarantees up to the Senate in the event that it cannot be prepared in the facilities themselves.

The technical specifications also state that “the service to be provided, as well as the quality of the articles and drinks offered to the public, must be equivalent to a top-notch coffee shop, according to current regulations, and those of a restaurant and self-service of good level and quality ”. The same for the products that are used and those that are sold through vending machines.

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