Cuba's landmark bar reopens
Source: Agencies |
April 14, 2013, Sunday
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Print Edition
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SLOPPY Joe's, one of Havana's most famous pre-revolutionary bars and a former haunt of American tourists and film stars like John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable, reopened its doors on Friday, 50 years after it closed.
Waiters dressed in black and orange uniforms served drinks and tapas to a mix of tourists and Cubans, some of whom had waited years for the reopening of the historic watering hole.
"I'm very excited ... Sloppy Joe's is open. I can't believe it. The past and present have been united," said Barbara, an American tourist from New York who has been visiting Havana for the last ten years and followed the bar's much anticipated restoration.
Sloppy Joe's Bar was founded by Spanish immigrant Jose Garcia, who capitalized on the US Prohibition era from 1920-33 when American tourists flocked to Havana to drink and gamble to their heart's content. The bar was nationalized along with most businesses in the early 1960s after Fidel Castro's revolutionary forces took power and languished until it closed in 1965.
The restoration, undertaken by the office of the Historian of Havana, began in 2007.
The dilapidated building was painstakingly restored using period photos and materials donated by people who were associated with the bar, both in Cuba and abroad.
"What interests me is to work to restore to my city, a whole series of things that form part of its memory. ... To restore Sloppy Joe's is to return to Havana the place where artists, baseball players, tourists all met," said Eusebio Leal, who heads the Historian of Havana's office.
Waiters dressed in black and orange uniforms served drinks and tapas to a mix of tourists and Cubans, some of whom had waited years for the reopening of the historic watering hole.
"I'm very excited ... Sloppy Joe's is open. I can't believe it. The past and present have been united," said Barbara, an American tourist from New York who has been visiting Havana for the last ten years and followed the bar's much anticipated restoration.
Sloppy Joe's Bar was founded by Spanish immigrant Jose Garcia, who capitalized on the US Prohibition era from 1920-33 when American tourists flocked to Havana to drink and gamble to their heart's content. The bar was nationalized along with most businesses in the early 1960s after Fidel Castro's revolutionary forces took power and languished until it closed in 1965.
The restoration, undertaken by the office of the Historian of Havana, began in 2007.
The dilapidated building was painstakingly restored using period photos and materials donated by people who were associated with the bar, both in Cuba and abroad.
"What interests me is to work to restore to my city, a whole series of things that form part of its memory. ... To restore Sloppy Joe's is to return to Havana the place where artists, baseball players, tourists all met," said Eusebio Leal, who heads the Historian of Havana's office.
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