Bar has a history tied to literary figures like Hemingway and Graham Greene
Perhaps this Old Havana watering hole should be known as Our Bar in Havana by those who are visiting the Cuban capital and are intrigued by celebrities who have spent time in the city. Old Havana’s Sloppy Joe’s has become an area institution, having helped those spending time in the district quench their thirst for over a century.
And says employee Raul Valverdi, any list of those who have patronized it reads like something of a who’s who in literary circles, with visiting authors having included Ernest Hemingway – known for his appreciation of Havana – and Graham Greene, who wrote the novel Our Man in Havana. The bar actually appeared in the movie adaptation of Our Man in Havana.
Among the many pictures adorning Sloppy Joe’s is one of Hemingway and Greene together in the bar.
Sloppy Joe’s dates back to 1917, opened by Spanish immigrant Jose Abeal. The bar wasn’t originally called Sloppy Joe’s, getting its current curious moniker after Americans who flocked to Havana during the Prohibition era in the United States began Anglicizing Abeal’s first name and also referred to an initially indifferent attitude by employees and clients to bar cleanliness, with cigarette butts, for instance, frequently tossed on the floor.
During the height of Prohibition, up to 90% of clients were American.
Valverdi notes that Sloppy Joe’s features include an 18-metre wooden bar countertop, the longest in Latin America when it opened, and visitors are frequently intrigued by the photos of celebrities who bent their elbows there.
“This is like a museum,” he states of the bar, which has its name in large lettering on the building exterior.
Valverdi says Sloppy Joe’s is unmistakably Cuban, despite its English name, with famed Cuban cocktails awaiting visitors and Cuban rum easily available.
Florida is also home to a bar and eatery called Sloppy Joe’s but Valverdi says its Havana namesake well predates the American bar. (The Havana bar has an indoor sign proudly stating that it was the “first in the world” to bear the Sloppy Joe’s name.)
And Valverdi says the Sloppy Joe’s of today’s Havana has changed in at least one regard from the one of yesteryear in which cleanliness wasn’t always top of mind with visitors.
“Now it’s very clean,” he states of today’s spotless bar.
