What bar in Key West did Hemingway frequently visit?

The bar in Key West that Ernest Hemingway frequently visited was Sloppy Joe’s. He became a regular patron during the 1930s, when the bar was a gathering place for local fishermen, writers, and other colorful residents.

Hemingway was introduced to deep-sea fishing by hardware-store owner Charles Thompson and joined fishing trips with Joe Russell, the bar’s owner and namesake figure. Russell was also known as “Sloppy Joe,” and some scholars believe he helped inspire the character Freddy in Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not.

Sloppy Joe’s originally occupied a building on Greene Street. In 1938, after the landlord raised the rent by one dollar per week, Russell and his customers reportedly moved the entire bar to its present location at 201 Duval Street.

The bar remains closely associated with Hemingway’s Key West legacy. It hosts Hemingway Days each July, including a famous look-alike contest. El Floridita, one of the wrong options, is instead the Havana bar associated with Hemingway’s daiquiris.