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01/25/13 - Bismarck Tribune - Round 2 for Sloppy Joe's bar, a Havana original

HAVANA (AP) -- A half-century later, Jose Rafa Malem remembers the balmy breezes
blowing through the bar's arching porticos, the grain of the tall wood stools,
the whiff of Pedro Domecq brandy on his father's breath.

And how could he forget the tangy ground-beef-and-tomato-sauce sandwiches
synonymous with what was then one of Havana's hippest hangouts, playfully dubbed
Sloppy Joe's?  "I ate so many, I got tired of them," said Rafa, a 59-year-old
Havana native who grew up to become a bartender.

Soon, Rafa will be able to relive those boyhood memories as the original Sloppy
Joe's reopens in Havana's historic quarter, giving residents and tourists from
all over the chance to belly up to the same bar that served thirsty celebrities
such as Rock Hudson, Babe Ruth and Ernest Hemingway.

It's part of an ambitious revitalization project by the Havana City Historian's
Office, which since the 1990s has transformed block after block of crumbling
ruins into rehabilitated buildings along vibrant cobblestone streets.

The effort has helped finance Cuba's socialist present by drawing tourists
fascinated by its pre-socialist past, from colonial palaces of the 18th century
to celebrity hangouts of the 1950s.

"For the people of this city, I think it's very interesting and very important
to rescue a place that has so much history and is so recognized around the
world," said Ernesto Iznaga, manager of the born-again Joe's, which will be run
by state-owned tourism concern Habaguanex.  "To restore it to how it was
before."

Sloppy Joe's was founded in 1918 by a Galician immigrant named Jose Abeal Otero
who purchased a grocery store in Old Havana after years of tending bar in New
Orleans and Miami.  Legend has it the sobriquet comes from the place's
grubbiness and Abeal's American nickname, Joe.

Rafa's father was a close friend of longtime bartender Fabio Delgado and took
his boy there on Sunday afternoons beginning in the late `50s.  During the day,
Rafa said, Joe's was a mellow family joint where kids slurped ice cream and
Coca-Cola while mom and dad chatted over more potent spirits.

Employees made sandwiches to order behind the black mahogany bar, polished to a
high shine and purportedly once the longest in Latin America at about 59 feet
(18 meters).

After dark, the place filled up with Americans on vacation.

Abeal's affable personality and familiarity with English from his years in the
States helped make Joe's a favorite among tipsy Yanks as far back as the
Prohibition era of 1920-1933, along with the nearby El Floridita bar, the
reputed birthplace of the daiquiri cocktail, and La Bodeguita del Medio, home of
the minty, rum-infused mojito.

As much as any other place in Havana, Joe's exemplified the island's lure as a
playground for Americans.

"No Havana resident ever went to Sloppy Joe's," novelist Graham Greene wrote in
his 1958 spy-farce "Our Man in Havana," `'because it was the rendezvous of
tourists."

It was a stylish clientele compared with the flip-flop and tank-top tourists who
swarm Cuba and other Caribbean islands today.  One illustrated color postcard
from the era shows gentlemen in fedoras and pinstripes laughing on barstools
alongside white-gloved ladies.  Many were wealthy, famous and looking for a good
time.

Frank Sinatra.  Ava Gardner.  Nat King Cole.  The list of patrons reads like a
Who's Who from Hollywood's Golden Age.  Rafa said his own brushes with celebrity
included Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams and Cuban crooner Benny More.
Swashbuckling actor Errol Flynn, who reportedly got in a fistfight at the bar
with an overly admiring fan, was enough of a regular that Joe's named a cocktail
for him.

Ownership later passed to another "Joe," Jose Garcia.

But last call came in 1965 as Fidel Castro's communist government was
nationalizing nearly all private businesses, and Joe's has been shuttered for
nearly five decades.

When restoration work began in 2010, laborers discovered that the wood floors,
rotten from humidity and years of neglect, had collapsed into the basement.  The
wooden bar, meanwhile, had splintered into three pieces.

"It was in ruins," Iznaga said.

He and his crew have spent two years bringing the watering hole back to life.
To keep Joe's as faithful to the original as possible, they've examined historic
photos and talked to old-timers like Rafa who remember the way it was.

Messy ground-beef sandwiches will be on the new menu, naturally.  Iznaga said
they apparently originated as an Abeal family recipe, though others have also
claimed they invented them.

Also on the menu will be the Errol Flynn, an icy vodka and tomato-juice
concoction garnished with a celery spear.  Among the few changes is that the new
bar will be air-conditioned for the comfort of sweaty patrons.

At the intersection of Animas and Zulueta streets on a recent morning, dozens of
workers buzzed about painting and finishing the bar's wood surfaces.  A Sloppy
Joe's sign hung from the building's corner, wrapped in plastic and ready to be
unveiled for opening day.

Construction setbacks have delayed the re-opening from Iznaga's original target
around New Year's, and the first fingers of Havana Club rum will likely flow
sometime in February.

Across the Florida Straits, where rum-runner and speakeasy operator Joe Russell
named his own bar Sloppy Joe's in the 1930s at the suggestion of his friend
Ernest Hemingway, operators are delighted that the original is being reborn.

"It's exciting because obviously our history is tied into their history," said
Donna Edwards, brand manager at the Key West Joe's, which recently celebrated 75
years at its current location.  "Hemingway and Russell, they would frequent
Sloppy Joe's when they were in Havana.  It's a piece of history, and our history
is now coming to life again."

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Original Source / Fuente Original:
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