12/12/2023 0 Comments Sloppy joes key west![]() ![]() Fortunately, I didn’t care, because it was always delicious, whatever the hell it was. Sloppy Joe Day was a surprise and, once you got your Sloppy Joe, the surprises didn’t end there, because, what the fuck was that stuff anyway? It was beef, I’m sure, but was it something else beforehand? Was it the meatballs from Tuesday or the hamburgers from Wednesday? Or was it - like the Adam Sandler song says - yesterday’s meatloaf? There was simply no way to know. It might occur only once or twice a month, and you never saw it coming (unless you read the monthly menu beforehand, which, of course, I didn’t). Fridays were a given - I always bought lunch on pizza Fridays - but Sloppy Joe Day was less predictable. I usually brought my lunches to school back in the day, but about once or twice a week, I’d get some money from my mom to buy lunch. That honor, without a doubt, belonged to Sloppy Joe Day. But while Pizza Day was comforting, it wasn’t the most exciting day on the school cafeteria menu. After a long week in school, it was nice to know that on Friday, lunch would be something reliable, something you could trust, and with pizza being just three easily-identifiable ingredients, you always knew what you were getting. The motley history of Sloppy Joe’s encourages thousands of tourists and literary lovers to take a seat under the creaky fans, hoping for a little inspiration and good karma from the historic notables who came before them.Don’t get me wrong, I loved pizza Fridays as a kid. The long wooden bar, once the longest in town, has well-worn patches and dings in it that celebrate the beloved establishment’s hallowed past. A 119-pound sailfish, proudly caught by Hemingway, shares space on the wall with a bat used to inspire fear in otherwise rowdy patrons. Today, the bar is an amalgamation of 1930s glory days memorabilia and trinkets that unassumingly remind patrons that Sloppy Joe’s isn’t a tourist trap, but a cultural experience you won’t find elsewhere. His cohorts, including Waldo Pierce, Captain Eddie Saunders, and John Dos Passos could often be seen spread out comfortably at the bar, drinking tequila, and enjoying the ocean breezes filtering through the structure’s jalousie doors. ![]() Hemingway wasn’t the only person from the early 20th century literary and artist scene to patronize the iconic establishment. Then owner, Joe Russell, a proprietor of illegal speakeasies and a personal friend of Hemingway's, agreed to name the institution after the writer's favorite drinkery in Havana, Cuba. The bar has been associated with Ernest Hemingway, who, drawn to the laid-back lifestyle of the area, purchased a nearby Spanish-style villa and set up shop in Key West in the 1930s. That’s the kind of easy-going attitude you’ll find in Key West, and certainly inside Sloppy Joe’s. ![]() Patrons simply got up from their stools, walked across the street to the establishment's present-day location, sat down, and resumed their drinking and conversation. The story goes that the move was less of an official endeavor, and more of a slight interruption in the bar’s daily activity. Four years later, in 1937, the watering hole moved into a vacated Cuban restaurant on the corner of Duval and Green streets. On the day Prohibition was repealed, the liquor lovers of Key West, Florida, rejoiced by opening Sloppy Joe’s Bar. ![]()
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