Sloppy Joe's Bar is a historic

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

located in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. The bar reopened in 2013 after being closed for 48 years.

History

The building is a neo-classical 3 story masonry building located on the corner of Animas and Zulueta streets in Havana Vieja (

Old Havana Old Havana ( es, link=no, La Habana Vieja) is the city-center (downtown) and one of the 15 municipalities (or boroughs) forming Havana, Cuba. It has the second highest population density in the city and contains the core of the original city of ...

) on the same block as the Plaza Hotel. The bar, in its heyday, can be seen in the movie '' Our Man in Havana'' starring Alec Guinness as it is the bar in which the character (Jim Wormold) is attempted to be recruited into the secret service.

Prohibition

The advent of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

in the United States spurred its original owner, Jose Abeal Otero, to change the emphasis from food service to liquor service when American tourists would visit Havana for the nightlife, the gambling and the alcohol they could not obtain back home. Sloppy Joe's welcomed tourists for over four decades, and offered over 80 cocktails in addition to the bar's own brand of 12-year-old

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Ph ...

. During the 1940s and 1950s it was a magnet for American celebrities as well as tourists wanting to mingle with them."Cuba's Sloppy Joe's died and it will stay that way"
Reuters, cited at The Leader-Post, July 11, 1981 It has been described by the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

as "one of the most famous bars in the world" with "almost the status of a shrine.""Sloppy Joes Really Sloppy Now--and Empty, Too"
Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1981

After the revolution

The period after the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...

of 1959 saw the bar's business nosedive, as some 90% of Sloppy Joe's clientele was American. A fire in 1965 closed the establishment for good. The building in which the bar was housed remained intact, resembling a ghost town with its single-piece mahogany bar and photos of celebrities. The slow-paced, extensive restoration, undertaken by The Office of the Historian of Havana, began in 2007. Renovation work on Sloppy Joe's was completed in early 2013, and its doors opened to the public on April 12 of that year. The facade closely resembles the images from the 1950s, even down to the sign on the corner, above the arches.

Inspiration

It supposedly inspired the deli sandwich sold in northern New Jersey for over half a century by the same name,

sloppy joe A sloppy joe is a sandwich consisting of ground beef, onions, tomato sauce or ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and other seasonings, served on a hamburger bun. There are several theories about the sandwich's origin. History Early and mid-20th ...

Gallery

File:Sloppy Joe's calles Zulueta y Animas, Havana, Cuba.jpg, Sloppy Joe's_calles Zulueta y Animas, Havana, Cuba File:Sloppy Joes Bar, Havana, Cuba.jpg, Sloppy Joes Bar File:Actor Alec Guinness on set of "Our Man in Havana," filmed at Sloppy Joe's in 1958.png, Actor Alec Guinness on set of " Our Man in Havana," filmed at Sloppy Joe's in 1958. File:Sloppy Joe's corner of Calles Zulueta and Animas.jpg, Sloppy Joe's_corner of Calles Zulueta and Animas

References

External links

Sloppy Joes Bar, Old Havana, Cuba (website)
{{coord, 23.139499, -82.35803, display=title, format=dms, type:landmark Drinking establishments in North America Food and drink companies of Cuba Buildings and structures in Havana Neoclassical architecture in Cuba Architecture in Havana