Sloppy Joe's Never Ending Saga

[Ryan]

This one's for Guy and of course anyone else interested.

I had my hopes up when I heard that Sloppy Joe's was at the point where the floors were being polished, that was back in November.

Of course I jumped the gun. I swung by the day after I arrived and although there has been quite a bit of progress, still nowhere near opening.

Restoration looks pretty good, the "Sloppy Joe's" font in the window is a bit off but it looks like they'll have a corner sign up.

As for how the bar itself will be once it opens, is anyone's guess. It is very close to the Parque Central Torre hotel. It'll have to be decent to keep me out of Bar Monserrate when I'm in that part of town, although the music there wasn't as good this time as it has been. Great people watching though.

I had a chat with the toilet attendant there one evening two weeks ago who told me that Cuba and Ireland have similar sayings, "Hasta La Victoria Siempre" in Cuba, "Until Everlasting Victory", he told me was similar to "Tiocfaidh Ár Lá" in (almost perfectly pronounced) Irish, "Our day will come", a motto of the IRA, not necessarily the sentiment of an organisation I'd agree with. Worth a hug all the same.

Anyway, Sloppy Joe pictures. Sorry Guy, next time

There was security I couldn't talk my way around to get pictures of the inside.

[laficion]

Thank you for the bother ,my friend,The pics.are very nice ,It will be a nice souvenir for me anyway.

I hope we'll have a dirnk in there one day .Thanks a lot.

Guy

[stargazer14]

Thanks! I was waiting for this update.

[El Presidente]

Cheers Mate!

I look forward to having a drink there with both you and Guy one day!!!!!

[Dara]

The quality of the music in Monserrate might have been due to the cheap guitar strings I gave then back in November!

[Ryan]

Thank you for the bother ,my friend,The pics.are very nice ,It will be a nice souvenir for me anyway.

I hope we'll have a dirnk in there one day .Thanks a lot.

Guy

Guy, it's absolutely no bother at all. It was one of my first stops. I'd love to see it open.

[CanuckSARTech]

Hopefully for this upcoming November's festival Partagas.....

[BrotherBear]

Re-opened today.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/12/us-cuba-sloppyjoes-idUSBRE93B18620130412

(Reuters) - 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, almost 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 U.S. Prohibition era from 1920-1933 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 office is in charge of a massive remake of Havana's historic Old City, considered one of the best preserved jewels of colonial architecture in the Caribbean, as well as a lucrative tourist attraction for Cuba's cash-strapped, communist-led government.

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, to our 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.

"The final objective is not commercial, it's not to exploit a name. The opportunity it brings is to recover an important memory of Havana," Leal added.

THE LONGEST BAR TOP

Among Sloppy Joe's most famous attractions was the bar itself, stretching 60 feet. It was immortalized in the 1959 movie "Our Man in Havana", starring Alec Guinness and based on the novel by British author Graham Greene - one of Sloppy Joe's former patrons.

Parts of the original bar were preserved and restored to original splendor.

Ernesto Iznaga, Sloppy Joe's new manager, said the bar will offer a wide range of the food and drink it served in its heyday, "specifically the food, such as dips, tapas, and sandwiches."

"I'm super happy. I passed by here every day. I followed the restoration from the beginning and I came today because I wanted to see how it looks," said an emotional José Luis Rodríguez, 80, the former owner of a nearby bar that was also nationalized in the '60s.

"It's exactly as it was. These tiles they have put down are the same color as before. Everything is the same, and although they altered the entrance and put in air-conditioning, they kept the same drinks and snacks, which is what the place was famous for," said Rodriguez, who did not eat or drink because the foreign currency prices were beyond his pension in Cuban pesos.

[CanuckSARTech]

..."I'm super happy..." said an emotional José Luis Rodríguez, 80, the former owner of a nearby bar that was also nationalized in the '60s...

...who did not eat or drink because the foreign currency prices were beyond his pension in Cuban pesos.

An unfortunate irony of the way that country is sometimes.

[MrGinger]

I'll have to check it out next month

[Jimmy2]

Hope to visit one day as my family went there for many years to drink and eat..

[stargazer14]

Just wanted to post this again - my grandparents on their honeymoon with family in Havana, 1929.

Love this photo.

[CanuckSARTech]

Just wanted to post this again - my grandparents on their honeymoon with family in Havana, 1929.

Love this photo.

Very cool!!!!! That's definitely a conversation piece to have framed on a wall!!!!

[JohnnyC]

Just wanted to post this again - my grandparents on their honeymoon with family in Havana, 1929.

Love this photo.

Brilliant photo. it would have been nice to visit those times. Just a question was the photo taken before or after the stock market crash of 1929

[mazolaman]

Cool to hear it's opened again, must be a Mecca!

Just wanted to post this again - my grandparents on their honeymoon with family in Havana, 1929.

Love this photo.

That is so cool.

[dpodiluk]

Crap! We were in Havana the day before it repoened Being in Cuba news does not come easily. Next time i guess.