The claim
A single doorway on the square by São Domingos, open since 1840, selling one thing: ginja, the sour-cherry liqueur, poured at the counter into a small glass with or without a cherry in the bottom. There is nowhere to sit. Lisbon drinks it standing on the pavement outside, which is the custom the house says began here.
What the records show
The date is the house's own, printed as "Desde 1840" on its front page, and Portuguese Wikipedia records the same: "Ginjinha Espinheira, fundada em 1840 pelo galego Francisco Espinheira" — founded by a Galician. No document has been traced behind it, so the grade is C. Lisbon city council's register of historic shops, Lojas com História, was read on 17 September 2026 and carries the house at Largo de São Domingos 8: it says the Ginjinha Espinheira opened in 1840, kept by a Galician of that name, and has held the same character and the same regulars since. That is the year published by a municipal body rather than by the business, which is a different thing from a document and does not lift the grade, but it does take the 1840 out of the house's sole keeping. The register adds something the page could not have got from the house: that this shop and its neighbour Sem Rival, across the square, were what introduced selling over the counter to the local trade, and that the practice spread from here through the city. It also gives the hours as nine in the morning to ten at night every day. What is unusually clear here is the kind of trade: the business says its history is told "ao balcão", at the counter, and the counter is the whole of it. There is no dining room to be primarily anything else, which is why a house with no chairs is on a site about old pubs and a wine shop with a kitchen is not.
What to look for inside
- One drink and nothing else: ginja, the sour-cherry liqueur, with or without a cherry in the glass
- Opened by Francisco Espinheira, a Galician, on the square outside the church of São Domingos
Visiting
A Ginjinha is in Lisbon, Portugal, at Largo de São Domingos 8, Santa Maria Maior, 1150 Lisbon. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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