Sloppy Joe's
Key West, FL
Sloppy Joe's
201 Duval Street, Key West, FL 33040, USA(305) 294-5717
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The official beginning of Sloppy Joes Bar, the famous and infamous Key West saloon, was December 5, 1933'the day Prohibition was repealed. The bar was destined to go through two name changes and a sudden change of location before it would become Sloppy Joes, seen by millions of visitors to Floridas southernmost outpost.
Key West being a bastion of free thinkers even in the thirties, Prohibition was looked on as an amusing exercise dreamed up by the government'and Joe Russell was just one of the enterprising individuals who operated illegal speakeasies. Even Ernest Hemingway, who made Key West his home at the time, slipped over to Russells on occasion to buy illicit bottles of Scotch, and the two struck up an enduring friendship.
When the governments Great Experiment ended a dismal failure, Joe Russell became a legitimate saloon-keeper-proprietor of the Blind Pig, a droll rundown building that Russell leased for three dollars a week.
Key West being a bastion of free thinkers even in the thirties, Prohibition was looked on as an amusing exercise dreamed up by the government'and Joe Russell was just one of the enterprising individuals who operated illegal speakeasies. Even Ernest Hemingway, who made Key West his home at the time, slipped over to Russells on occasion to buy illicit bottles of Scotch, and the two struck up an enduring friendship.
When the governments Great Experiment ended a dismal failure, Joe Russell became a legitimate saloon-keeper-proprietor of the Blind Pig, a droll rundown building that Russell leased for three dollars a week.