Jose Rafa Malem: Sloppy Joe

Sloppy Joe Dept: HAVANA - 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, according to Winnipeg Free Press. 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 and jose Rafa Malem, 59, walks into Sloppy Joe's bar, where restoration work of the bar is ongoing, in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. Rafa's father was a close friend of longtime bartender of Sloppy Joe's, Fabio Delgado and would take Rafa there on Sunday afternoons beginning in the late '50s. To keep Joe's as faithful to the original as possible, project managers examined historic photos and talked to old-timers like Rafa who remember the way it was. Sloppy Joe's will be reopened in February 2013 by the state-owned tourism company Habaguanex, part of an ambitious revitalization project by the Havana City Historian's Office. AP Photo/Franklin Reyes 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. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.