LIFE IN HAVANA: The story of the “Sloppy Joe”.
Ernest Hemingway, regular at this bar in Havana, is who suggests Joe Rusell name to the “Sloppy Joe” Cayo Hueso, 1933.
En in the first decades of the 20th century between the habanero bars already is media “Floridita”, but the “Sloppy Joe’s”, located in the Central corner of Zulueta and Animas, was that of higher sales. Its founder was José Abeal, a Galician who arrived in Cuba in 1904 to begin as waiter at a restaurant in Galiano Street ditch. At age three he was running better in New Orleans. He worked there for six years until he moved to Miami to make a living as a bartender and returned to the Cuban capital in 1918.
Thanks to its vast experience in the giro, it not delayed in getting employment. Hired him as dependent on a cafe called “The ladle greasy”, where he saved enough money to buy an old Inn in the Animas Street, one block from Central Park and a few steps from the Hotel Plaza.
En 1919 the Puritans declared the prohibition in the United States and as in the cases of all prohibitions, is always the way to circumvent it… and Havana was well closely. Some tourists who knew Abeal when I was living in Miami, visited him in his still life, somewhat dilapidated and quite dirty, and suggested that it become the place a bar for American travelers, since Abeal spoke correct English. It changed its name to “Joe”, and added the word “sloppy”, by the look of the place.
Over the years it would become one of the most famous bars in Cuba, very popular because American tourist put his feet in the Cuban capital. Among its most illustrious visitors were Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Don Ameche, Alice Faye, Tyrone Powers, Cesar Romero, John Wayne, John Barrymore, etc, etc… One of his regular customers, Ernest Hemingway, who suggests the name of this bar for their “Sloppy Joe” of Cayo Hueso, 1933.
Fabio Delgado, a Cuban barman of the Sloppy Joe Rusell, created a whopping 33 cocktails, one especially dedicated to star Errol Flynn. Among the highlights of his gastronomic offer highlighted the “old clothes” and the fabulous Cuban sandwich. Mythical and famous bar Sloppy Joe’s, the longest in all of Cuba mahogany black, mysteriously disappeared at the end of the 1960s. Now, in the process of restoration of as famous place, miraculously recovered and from it will play again…
Agencies/Memorias/DerubinJacome/InternetPhotos/YouTube
The Cuban History, Hollywood.
Arnoldo Varona, Editor.
CUBA HOY/TODAY: Calles de la Habana.