“This is definitely a scam.” That was the first thing Camila Puche thought when she saw an online ad for a kiosk. “I actually got scammed on Idealista once before,” she confesses, “but despite that, I’ve never stopped checking the site.” This time, the intuition of this 31-year-old Venezuelan—a Madrid resident for the past eight years—proved stronger than her fear.
After several weeks of uncertainty, Camila managed to meet with the owner, verify the property titles, and receive the keys to a small cubicle at 23 Diego de León Street. What she had on her hands was, in her own words, a “steal”: a rental for less than a thousand euros right in the heart of the Salamanca district.
“The initial investment for any average location would have been between €5,000 and €7,000. Here, it came to approximately €3,500,” she explains. With that tight budget and a healthy dose of energy, Camila is getting ready to raise the shutters this coming Monday, May 4th—or, as she puts it herself: “If everything goes well.”
For her, this kiosk—which had been closed for at least a year—is not just a business; it represents a return to her roots in Caracas. “In Venezuela, my family owned a type of kiosk that was very famous fifteen or twenty years ago—they were collapsible stands called ‘La Parada Inteligente’ [The Smart Stop],” she recalls nostalgically. She worked there for eight years and learned that, with the right management, a kiosk can offer “modern” concepts.
Now, she seeks to replicate that success alongside her wife, Hermerys Liendo (33), who will be in charge of customer-facing sales. Camila—who is keeping her position as a manager at Plaza Mahou inside the Santiago Bernabéu stadium—will handle strategy, suppliers, and content. “I’m a restless spirit—that’s why I own a kiosk now,” she sums up.
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