A kebab shop in Valencia, located on Pedro III el Grande Street, has been using napkins from a wedding that never actually took place. The napkins bear the names of the intended couple, Manolo and Paqui, along with the planned wedding date: June 25, 2004.
The unusual situation came to light after a poor online review. The shop explained: “In Spain, there are 194,253 people named Jorge, and one of them left us this review the other day: ‘The kebab is a ten, and the packaging is beautiful, but the napkins I’m wiping my face with are the ugliest I’ve ever seen. Well, I can’t give you five stars.'”
The owners admitted Jorge was right: “They’re damn ugly. It’s a real pain to eat a chicken and beef kebab with artisan bread, get your mouth full of homemade yogurt sauce, and then have to wipe it off with this crap.”
So they set out to find a solution: “We had little budget, but plenty of determination. That’s when we found Paqui’s ad.” The ad offered 5,000 napkins for sale. The only catch was that she lived in Seville, over 600 kilometers from the Valencian shop.
After a “tough negotiation,” they reached an agreement. Paqui just wanted to get rid of the napkins and said: “If you come and pick them up, I’m happy.” So the shop owners drove to Seville to collect their prize.
When they opened the box, they noticed a detail: the napkins were from a wedding that never took place, printed with the names of the bride and groom and the date. “But as my grandmother says, you don’t throw anything away if it’s still useful. So we recycled these napkins from a wedding that never happened. Love sometimes fails, but Duro [the shop’s name] doesn’t.”
