“After four and half years without work it was unbelievable. Totally unexpected, when you’re over 50, to get a glimpse of a little bit of light. No one wants people who are 53 years old,” say Rafael, immaculate in waistcoat and bow tie, behind the bar of Entrepanes Díaz in Barcelona.

Rafael’s glimpse of light came when a friend told him that a new bar was opening and that the owner was looking for staff who were over 50.

“I was looking for waiters who are over 50 because I knew they’d be fantastic and because society has unjustly pushed them out of the job market,” says the bar’s owner Kim Díaz. “These guys have 20 or 30 years of experience, a lifetime. Here the waiter’s profession is in decline but the people I’ve employed see it as a vocation.”

He says the interviews were a nightmare as they had 845 applicants for five places. Candidates were interviewed jointly by Díaz and his friend Antxón Gómez who worked as art director on a number of Pedro Almodóvar’s films and who helped to design the bar.

Díaz says he chose Gomez because of his acute perception of people’s character.

“It was hard to choose because I would have taken on 80% of the people we interviewed,” Díaz says. “The light in their eyes, their enthusiasm, their experience – I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“They only interviewed me for two minutes and I got the job,” says Rafael. “We had a chat, they looked at my CV and I was in.”

A customer in Entrepanes Diaz. Photograph: Francesca Nocivelli/The Guardian

Díaz says his goal was to recreate the atmosphere of a 1950s bar in Madrid or Seville, with lots of marble, brass, tiled floors and warm lighting. Given the hostility of many Catalans towards Madrid this was not perhaps the ideal business plan. Even the name Entrepanes pokes fun at what he calls “this stupid little war between Catalonia and Spain”. Entrepans is Catalan for sandwiches but by inserting the letter “e” Díaz has given it a Spanish twist. Panes is the plural of pan (bread) in Spanish. This is not a gesture that is lost on people here.

While Spain’s youth unemployment rates of over 50% have dominated the headlines, less attention has been paid to the two million people aged 45-64 who are out of work and have little hope of finding any. Half of those in this age group have been unemployed for two or more years.

Rafael says that when he was applying for jobs at online job agencies his application was usually rejected within minutes the moment he put in his age.

Employers prefer young people who they can pay less because they still live with their parents and don’t have to pay the bills, he says.

“But it makes sense to employ people of my age,” he adds. “We’re making a comeback, we’re not going to complain. We’re here to work, to get along with people, get paid and do a good job. And clients notice this, the experience we have and the good service they get.”