There are 3 main entrance avenues into the triangle-shaped plaza, Largo do Intendente. In one corner, you have “Little Bangladesh” with its Halal butchers, cell phone case stores, travel agencies, and teetotaler Bangladeshi/Pakistani restaurants. The next corner bleeds into Chinatown with its imported clothing and costume jewelry shops and Chinese food markets – all closed up at night. We enter from the Anjos neighborhood, which as we’ve mentioned has no effective nightlife. At this edge of the plaza, you find several sketchy bars complete with prostitutes, drunks, and patrolling police officers – hints of the plaza’s nefarious past. From everything we’ve read, 4 years ago, none of the businesses we frequent were open yet, and it was a dangerous place to be at 2AM.
In 2014, Intendente still has room to grow, but there are some businesses. Most of our walking trips take us through the plaza en route to its Metro stop or to downtown locations on foot. Lining the plaza, there are: 3 cafes, “the most beautiful shop in Lisbon“, a sports club founded in 1933, a couple ruined buildings, an artists co-op workshop, and Casa Independente.
At 9 O’clock at night, the cafes do a bustling business on the weekends selling beer, house wine, coffee, and toasted sandwiches. Opposite the main cafes is Casa Independente. We know from their Facebook page that music events are regularly scheduled here, but from the outside it looks like an apartment building with an open lobby and intimidating staircase which leads to the event space upstairs.
Armed with an exact time (11PM) and a foreigner-friendly event (free DJ), we show up at a cafe across the way to stake out the venue starting at about 10:30PM. By 11PM, the second floor lights are still on, and the place looks empty, but the cafe is full. We order a second beer. By 11:45PM, the lights are dim across the way, and people are starting to filter from the cafe, but Casa Independente still looks pretty dead from the outside.
We join suit leaving the cafe, and pretend to understand the Portuguese bouncer/security guard who hands us a form to fill out before heading upstairs. We fill it out like the other people waiting in the lobby, and climb the stairs to discover a rocking house party sprawling across several rooms and an outdoor patio with multiple bars. We dance to American 80s hits and Latin music until 2AM when the DJ set ends, and we aren’t the only ones singing along to Madonna.
Important lessons when going out in Portugal:
- Show up at the right time. If you don’t, you’ll get served, but you’ll probably be lonely.
- If you don’t know what the right time is, follow the crowd.
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