Busy reaching over the wooden bar to fetch a cold beer for one of his loyal customers, the owner of Tony’s Bar in St Julian’s, Raymond Baldacchino, gets a friendly pat on the shoulder from another regular.

“You know, it’s always like this here. These people come in every day. Some have been doing so for many years and they still keep coming,” Mr Baldacchino told this newspaper yesterday.

The 80-year-old Spinola snack bar – Tony’s Bar – owned by Raymond Baldacchino, will not close down any time soon, even as it is engulfed by new development.

The 80-year-old bar, handed down from one generation to the next, is synonymous with Spinola, but the area around it is undergoing a major transformation. Together with a couple of other old outlets, it has been engulfed by a development that includes a 424-space car park, a supermarket, offices, shops and apartments in Mikiel Anġ Borg Road.

Yet while Spinola undergoes a drastic, noisy facelift, Mr Baldacchino’s tiny watering hole remains something of an oasis.

As yet another regular calls out to the owner, who now runs the bar with the help of his son and daughter, he points out that the decision to keep the place open came after failure to reach an agreement with the project developers.

We’ve been here for 80 years now and for many, Tony’s will always be the same old Tony’s

He insists, however, that he puts his heart and soul into managing the bar, which is open daily from 6am till late.

“Many say that while everything around us is clearly changing, we’re going to stay the same. It’s not the first time we have been told that Tony’s Bar is part of the locality’s identity and that’s a huge honour,” he said.

The bar’s image, he added, will not be updated, despite the new look that the area will inevitably get. While he renovated the bar some years ago, he will not even consider replacing the black and white sign that has been there since the very beginning.

“I’m not interested in what the others are doing. That sign was chosen by my father and I won’t even think about removing it.”

Recalling the days he spent behind the bar as a young boy, as his father ran the place, Mr Baldacchino said he knew most of the locals in the area, especially if they were born and raised here.

“We’ve been here for 80 years now and for many, Tony’s will always be the same old Tony’s, the small bar in the heart of St Julian’s,” Mr Baldacchino said, pointing out that the relationship he has with his customers was crucial to maintaining the snack bar’s appeal.

Over the years, he said, he had seen countless young customers visiting the bar with their families as young children and who then keep returning with their own families years later.

“Last week, for instance, two families from Australia showed up who used to come here regularly many years ago.

“This sense of community we have here, it’s a very special feeling.”