With the dawn of the 20th century, Havana became an exciting city: new hotels, theaters, museums, restaurants and cabarets boosted its cultural attractiveness, placing it at the level of some of the world\u2019s major capital cities. The movers and shakers of its nightlife were the bars, including Sloppy Joe\u2019s, which was as popular as others located nearby: El Floridita, Habana del Sevilla Biltmore, Bodeguita del Medio, Caf\u00e9 El Louvre, and others on Monserrate and Obispo streets.<\/p>\n
From 1920 to 1933, Prohibition was in effect in the United States, and bartenders, tourists, and businessmen flocked to Havana to mix and mingle in the forbidden taverns.<\/p>\n
On the corner of Zulueta and \u00c1nimas streets, close to the Parque Central and the Paseo del Prado, Sloppy Joe\u2019s became an obligatory stop for visitors. Its owner, Jos\u00e9 Abeal y Otero, a Spanish immigrant who came to Cuba in 1904, founded the bar in 1918 after having worked for years in New Orleans and Miami bars, and for a brief period in Havana restaurants. He called it Sloppy Joe\u2019s because of the mess and filth that he found when he bought the locale (originally a store selling food and beverages), adding his nickname (Joe for Jos\u00e9).<\/p>\n
Described by the Los Angeles Times as \u201cone of the most famous bars in the world,\u201d it became a temple for Hollywood stars of the 1940s and 50s: Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Gregory Peck, Ernest Hemingway, Mario Moreno (Cantinflas), and many others enjoyed its splendid cocktail menu \u2013 a list of 80-plus. Subsequently, the bar was immortalized by the British writer Graham Green in his novel Our Man in Havana (made into a film starring Alec Guiness).<\/p>\n
For many years, the legendary bartender Fabio Delgado worked at Sloppy Joe\u2019s; he was an essential point of reference in his specialty and the creator of well-known cocktails such as the Negroni Especial, Sol y Sombra, Cubanac\u00e1n and Cuba Bella.<\/p>\n
Shut down in the 1960s by a devastating fire, the bar reopened in April of this year after meticulous research and the technical intervention of experts from the Havana City Historian\u2019s Office, who recovered elements of the bar, its architecture, functional structure and ambience.<\/p>\n
Now the bar is run by the Habaguanex company. Manager Ernesto Iznaga provides us with details: it has a mahogany bar\u2014the longest in Cuba\u2014that seats 25; a 75-seat lounge; and a menu chock-full of cocktails, snacks and tapas, reinforcing the magnetic appeal of its tradition with the Sloppy Joe\u2019s special (a cocktail and a sandwich).<\/p>\n
(by Fernando Fern\u00e1ndez Mili\u00e1n)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the corner of Zulueta and \u00c1nimas streets, close to the Parque Central and the Paseo del Prado, Sloppy Joe\u2019s became an obligatory stop for visitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2445,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,45],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[33669],"class_list":["post-9325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-magazine-articles","category-shortcuts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n