Sloppy Joe’s is celebrating 85 years on a Key West corner. This bar’s story is even older
On an island filled with famous watering holes and charming backstories, one bar stands out as a Key West classic.
This year, Sloppy Joe’s Bar is celebrating 85 years of doing business at 201 Duval St., where it anchors a corner at Greene Street and each year hosts a contest to find someone with the beard and the bulk to double as Ernest Hemingway.
“We see our T-shirts around the world,” said Donna Edwards, the bar’s brand manager.
Sloppy Joe’s serves crowds of tourists daily, but it has held onto its homespun charm.
Locals still show up to knock back a few, and several people have worked there for decades.
“They become family the day they start work,” Edwards said. “Our longest running server has been there 42 years.”
One manager just marked 35 years with the bar.
Many regulars have their favorite bartender or server.
Musician Brian Roberts, who has played Sloppy Joe’s since 2000, said customers will wait so they can sit in their favorite server’s section.
“People come to see them,” Roberts said. “The staff has followings.”
Hemingway, of course, held up part of the bar in the 1930s, as a close friend with the man who started it all, Joe Russell, a boat captain who was also a bootlegger before he turned legit with his own bar.
The story of Russell and Sloppy Joe’s goes back to Dec. 5, 1933 — the same day Prohibition was repealed — when it was on Greene Street, which is now Captain Tony’s Saloon, another heavy hitter in the Key West bar scene.
The move from Greene Street to just around the corner on Duval came after Russell refused to pay a rent increase — his $3 a week rose to $4 — and he relocated the bar to a building that for years had been the Victoria Restaurant.
“He quietly went over and bought the building,” Edwards said. Russell took the prime real estate for $2,500.
The bar never really closed during the move, as Sloppy Joe’s history states.
Customers picked up their drinks, grabbed some furniture and carried it all down the block.
Sloppy Joe’s today remains a family-owned business.
Sidney Snelgrove and Jim Mayer bought it in 1978 and the bar remains with their families.
Sloppy Joe’s always honors its own.
The bar credits Jean Klausing for Sloppy Joe’s climb to international fame. He was hired as general manager in 1978 and, after retiring, was named “general manager emeritus.” He helped with the bar until his death in 2009.
“It’s really important to the families we always remember him,” Edwards said.
People like Klausing helped turn Sloppy Joe’s into a place that not only sells tons of T-shirts but keeps a bit of old Key West going strong.
Roberts plays lots of bars in the Keys but when he’s on stage at Sloppy Joe’s, it’s a remarkable feeling.
“I never take it for granted,” he said. “I absolutely look forward to it every day. I’ve played some epic crowds there. There’s something really special about Sloppy Joe’s.”