100 years old and serving coffee 365 days a year, why Italy’s oldest barista won’t retire

Since her last holiday 67 years ago, Anna Possi has opened her cafe in northern Italy every day. ‘I’m around people. I feel good,’ she says

Rome: Grandma Anna is up and at it again, just like every morning, day after day, week after week for the past 65 years.

At 100, Grandma Anna, or Nonna Anna as Anna Possi is known in the picturesque village of Nebbiuno above Lake Maggiore, is Italy’s oldest barista.

For more than six decades – since 1958 to be exact – Nonna Anna has been opening her Bar Centrale at 7am. It closes at seven in the evening in the winter and at nine in summer – 365 days a year.

In November, Nonna Anna celebrated her 100th birthday – and there is a sign on her cafe to prove it, reading La barista più longeva d’Italia, or the oldest barista in Italy, to remind guests of her achievement.

Despite the pride, there is a problem: Italy’s cafe bars, many of which are family-run, are running out of new blood.