Café Mambo, Ibiza’s iconic sunset spot mecca, is gearing up for party season once more

Ask any Ibiza -goer – or indeed, DJ – their favourite spot on the island, and chances are the answer will be Café Mambo.

The spot, right in the middle of Ibiza’s sunset strip, has become something of a music mecca since it was founded in 1994, in an era when the internet didn’t exist and the island was only just starting to find its feet as the go-to place for dance music enthusiasts.

As the Ibiza starts to come back to life again, the café will be there too: waiting for the partygoers to arrive and watch sun descend into the ocean with a glass of sangria in hand.

Or, indeed, brunch followed by an afternoon of sunbathing.

However, the bar’s opening days were much humbler.

“Me and Alex P were pretty much the only DJs living on the island in 1994, so we were working at every club that was open,” Brandon Block told MixMag in 2019.

“When we weren’t playing at Pacha, Space, Amnesia or Ku, we were drinking at Café del Mar.

We had an interest in [buying] the bar next door, but when we came back to Ibiza the following summer, Javier said, ‘Guess what, lads?

I’ve bought the bar!’
“When we told him we’d been interested in it, he apologised and said he didn’t know.

We wouldn’t have been able to manage it anyway – we were so partied out!

After that, Javier invited us to drink at Mambo.

‘Bring your friends,’ he said.

So we did.”
Back in the mid-90s, with barely any places to work, PR executives hunkered down at Café Mambo to sunbathe and do business.

Eventually, they started inviting DJs to join them – at which point the spot took off a place for those in the know.

As founder Javier Anadon tells it, the café was perfectly placed to take advantage of Ibiza’s growing reputation.

“ San Antonio was already becoming a meeting point for people from all over the world, especially around the sunset,” he explains.

“My first bar was Bucanero down in the bay which opened in 1984, the crazy days!

Mambo wasn’t my first, but it has become our most cherished.

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“For us, Mambo was always about creating a place where people could come together, gather on the rocks, enjoy the music and that amazing view over the bay where locals and travellers can mix together.”
The name Mambo came, he says, from a ‘feeling and energy’ – and in turn, that feeling has attracted celebrities and musicians in their droves, who helped make Mambo a legendary name on the Ibiza pre-party circuit.

Sasha, Paul Oakenfold, Roger Sanchez, Frankie Knuckles, Fatboy Slim, Swedish House Mafia: all of them have swung by the bar, as well as Javier’s sons Christian and Alan, who help run the bar and perform as the Mambo Brothers.

“One time Nick Mason, the drummer from Pink Floyd came, and I told the DJ to play Comfortably Numb at sunset,” Javier says.

“It was a magical moment - and the next day he brought me autographed drumsticks.”
Even Martin Garrix swung by in the early days of his career – as Javier says, “we knew with his energy he would be a star.”
“Back then, PRs would start false rumours about rival parties, saying the headliner had missed their flight,” Christian and Alan added to MixMag.

“The rumours would spread across the island because there was no internet – so the DJ or DJs concerned would come down to Mambo to prove they were ready to play the superclubs later that night.”
As Ibiza enters its party season once more, Mambo is gearing up for another few months of returning friends and new names, starting with Hannah Wants on April 17, as well as pre-parties with the likes of Claptone and guests before Chinois, or Meduza and James Hype before they head off to their Wednesday residency at Hï.

And though the faces might change, some things stay the same.

“There are many small moments rather than one big story,” Javier says.

“One that always stays with me is watching people experience their first Ibiza sunset at Mambo.

You see it in their faces, that feeling when the music, the light and the atmosphere all come together.

It never gets old.”
Café Mambo opens on April 17; cafemamboibiza.com