Popular Spanish deli shop in Bristol celebrates ten years on Gloucester Road

A popular Spanish deli shop in Bristol is celebrating ten years on one of the city’s most bustling high streets. El Colmado has recently relocated just 300 metres up Gloucester Road around seven weeks ago and has been gradually completing the finishing touches while continuing to trade.

El Colmado’s owner, David Pavon, was born just outside Barcelona and moved from Bristol to Spain back in 2008. He dipped his toe into the food industry working in a restaurant alongside his computing job when he moved to the UK. He had been enamoured with the food from a young age, visiting family scattered all across the country.

“You can go 100km down the road and have a completely different set of products because the conditions are different like different soil or levels of water,” he said.

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Now aged 43, David has fond memories of his grandmother cooking paella from scratch when he was a child. His family incorporated so many traditions from across the country that celebrates each corner of the country.

“For me, food has always been a passion. The shop was a way for me to bring all of those products that were in my head to Bristol and the level of quality I have always known in Spain.”

El Colmado first launched on Gloucester Road in 2013 and is an amalgamation of some of the quintessential foods from the country. He works simultaneously with small independent businesses and bigger brands you might find in Spanish supermarkets.

In the UK, many shoppers are used to mass-produced supermarket products like cured chorizo, often cheap in price and taste. Supermarkets are more focused on margins so will not always look to provide the highest quality imported products on the market, but a cheaper alternative for some people.

David said: “The beauty of independent businesses is that we can choose not to work on just margins. We need to to make some money, obviously, but the most important thing is the product itself.”

Chorizo continues to be one of the most favoured deli items. David said lots of people in Bristol request a spicier flavour, which is not necessarily traditional in Spain. Olives also fly off the shelves in El Colmado as well as specialised stock, olive oil, and high-quality tinned tuna.

“There are a lot of products I bring where the quality is right up there. I bring the products from Spain myself on palettes rather than buying from a supplier.”

This year, David moved into a unit up on Gloucester Road, which has been the home of food-related businesses for more than a century. Most recently, it was the home of T & P A Murray, a delicatessen and butchers for almost 30 years.

“The fact these premises were available was a no-brainer,” David said. He wanted to keep the heritage of the unit alive and has offered the space to Beast Butchers.

Reflecting on his time with El Colmado over the last decade, he said: “That’s one of the beautiful things about the area where I am. Gloucester Road is very supportive of independent shops, like many other areas around Bristol, but it is special for that. To be honest, it’s been a continuous growth over the years.

“I remember when I opened it was difficult maybe because they were difficult years. Gloucester Road was growing and we were slowly getting better.

“Throughout the years, there hasn’t been a year where we’ve done more than the year before. The people who come, come back because the product is there.”

El Colmado is located at 153 B, Avon, Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8BA. Open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm.

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