BIROSCA CARIOCA
HISTORY
34 years of unforgettable music
THE BEGINNING
Birosca Carioca was founded by Oscar Gonzalez. Born in the Canary Islands, he emigrated to Venezuela at the age of nine, where his family settled in Puerto Ordaz, a city near the Brazilian-Venezuelan border. In the 1980s, Oscar frequently traveled to Brazil. It was during these trips that he was inspired to open a birosca—a Brazilian term for an informal, underground, or community bar often serving as a meeting place for friends. This idea stayed with him for years, but it wasn’t until he arrived in Mérida in the late 1980s that it began to take shape.
Initially, Oscar opened a clothing store, but he soon found a commercial space in a colonial home in the historic heart of the city. With the support of friends and fellow music enthusiasts, he put together a makeshift sound system, reels, cassettes, tables, and chairs, and opened Birosca as a vegetarian restaurant in July 1991. Living in the countryside in Santos Marquina, a town on the outskirts of Mérida, Oscar and his friends realized that a meeting point where people could connect would be a practical business venture—one that could bridge the gap between urban areas and the phoneless rural communities. Yet, Birosca’s appeal would eventually transcend these divides, as well as other cultural barriers, fostering new connections within the city’s diverse population.
Mérida’s magic was partly due to its isolation, but in the absence of external trends, traditional influences dominated certain aspects of the city’s culture. While alternative bars had briefly opened and closed, the nightlife scene was dominated by exclusive nightclubs with strict dress codes and clientele restrictions—practices many residents found superficial and overbearing. Birosca stood in stark contrast to these establishments. From the very beginning, its inclusive atmosphere brought together people of all backgrounds. A person’s hairstyle, attire, or profession was never an issue. While this openness provoked some discrimination toward the bar in certain circles, in others it cemented Birosca as a symbol of authenticity and community—a reflection of Mérida itself in the 1990s.
However, it was not Birosca itself that brought people together; it simply provided the space. Although it was difficult to buy music in 1991, Birosca quickly established itself as a musical venture, and frequent visitors to Mérida felt compelled to contribute to its growing collection. This collection, rare for the time, became the unifying factor among an otherwise diverse clientele. The extent to which the music would resonate with people, or how deeply it would affect them, was something they could not have foreseen. Yet, in the end, there was simply no other place to experience such a unique playlist. The more the music resonated with people, the more they frequented Birosca, until it became not only a physical part of the city but also an integral part of how the city saw itself.