This story was co-published by KTEP News with Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit newsroom, convener and funder devoted to high-quality, fact-based information and knowledge from the U.S.-Mexico border.
From the skin, it seems to be just like the sort of unassuming watering gap you’d discover in lots of locations alongside the U.S.-Mexico border. But just a few steps contained in the Kentucky Club reveal an iconic bar that’s served drinks to generations of holiday makers — and is (possibly) the supply of what’s change into the margarita.
The membership, positioned within the coronary heart of this busy industrial metropolis, is like different landmarks in Mexican border cities which have claimed culinary firsts, like Cesar’s in Tijuana, the place, within the Twenties, Cesar Cardini stunned patrons with a savory salad that began with a lowly pile of lettuce. In Matamoros, throughout from Brownsville, it’s the Drive Inn identified for its surf and turf, the surf represented by big bacon-wrapped and cheese-stuffed Gulf shrimp. In Nuevo Laredo, the well-known Cadillac Bar was famend for its Ramos Gin Fizz. And on the opposite facet of the river from Del Rio in Ciudad Acuña: the dive-ish Mrs. Crosby’s or Ma Crosby’s had a loyal following and was featured in George Strait’s tune Blame it on Mexico.
There’s at all times been debate over a few of the “firsts” and “world well-known.” But that didn’t preserve throngs of patrons from filling so many wooden and Nagahide cubicles and barstools.
The undisputed fact, nonetheless, is that the gathering of border bars and eating places, alluring with their invites to equal components camaraderie and journey, are all gone, victims of adjusting occasions and tastes.
Except for the Kentucky Club.
As tensions between the U.S. and Mexico percolate, the Kentucky Club is the one legendary bar nonetheless standing alongside the border, and a tempting reminder that even the thorniest of points may be ironed out over a margarita. Or a minimum of get pleasure from.
This is particularly true throughout Mexico’s vacation season, which begins in September with Independence Day celebrations. That’s adopted by Day of the Dead on the finish of October, the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 12, and culminates with Christmas.
“We appear to get extra individuals from throughout the border trying to have fun” Mexico’s Independence celebrations in September, bartender Teodoro Morales mentioned. “Otherwise, it’s the identical curiosity: Looking for the proper margarita.”
For guests from neighboring Texas and the United States, the bar stays a should, and a minimum of on the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border, the welcoming gateway to Mexico.
“We are very delighted to have guests from Dallas, so we need to present them the place,” mentioned Juárez resident Rafael Hernandez, as he and his spouse launched their mates, Stephanie Brancher and Scott Bernardi, to the Kentucky Club on a Saturday afternoon.
“Beautiful, stunning place, attractive place, excited to be right here,” Bernardi added.
“I heard they’ve the most effective margaritas. They invented the margarita, proper?” Brancher requested with fun.
OK, it’s arduous to find out 100%, however the membership’s homeowners and workers swear they’re the keepers of the unique margarita.
And, actually, it doesn’t matter. Diehard patrons insist that it’s the legend that counts, as does a binational really feel that throws again to a time when it was simple to cross the border to buy, dine and share a nightcap.
“The Kentucky Club has soul,” mentioned Rich Wright, an El Pasoan who presents strolling excursions of Ciudad Juárez — together with one guided stroll that contains a cease on the historic bar. “You go into the Kentucky Club, and you may sense all of the drinks which were spilled on the bar. You can sense that historical past. It’s there.”
The place is a brief hop from the Paso del Norte International Bridge connecting El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. A brilliant, inexperienced signal on the entrance spares the modesty, saying the “World well-known Kentucky Club.”
Like most of the historic border bars that catered to Americans in many years previous, the Kentucky Club dates again to the Twenties Prohibition within the United States. Inside, the partitions pay homage to Mexico’s Golden Era of movie with grainy footage of the nation’s well-known display screen stars, together with Maria Felix and Jorge Negrete. Iconic American actors and entertainers line the partitions too, together with Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger.
When Kentucky bourbon was banned north of the border, U.S. prospects knew they might cross the border and discover the drink on the membership’s crowded bar.
Business was so good that, throughout prohibition, a distillery quickly relocated to Ciudad Juárez to offer a gradual provide of bourbon. “Americans got here from all around the nation to those border cities to get pleasure from a authorized drink in a bar,” mentioned Wright, the tour information.
Despite the storied historical past, the membership has struggled. After Sept. 11, Americans turned leery of the tight safety and lengthy inspection traces on the worldwide bridges and crossings. New crossing necessities caught many off guard, resembling the necessity for a U.S. passport or visa to return house.
Others had been scared off throughout a wave of drug violence: cartel members and rival gangs battled for management of profitable contraband smuggling routes. The widespread bloodshed killed enterprise at iconic border bars that relied on vacationers. Gangsters made it worse, demanding safety cash from bar homeowners.
Then, extra lately, the pandemic pressured the Kentucky Club and different locations in Juárez to shut quickly. But when it reopened, the bar turned a refuge for El Pasoans and different Americans who had been uninterested in being cooped up at house. Despite precautions, the social distancing and all of the masks, COVID-19 claimed the lifetime of Kentucky Club proprietor Sergio Peña in July 2020 — the yr the bar was alleged to have fun 100 years in enterprise.
Through the hardships, the membership has discovered a strategy to survive — even thrive. It could be the proximity to a global bridge, however for positive it’s the well-known margaritas.
As he blended a margarita, Morales, the bartender, mentioned the signature drink was created in 1942, on the request of a buyer.
Back then, he remembered, it was not thought of ladylike to drink straight tequila.
“That’s why a husband wished the bartender to make his spouse a particular drink,” Morales mentioned. She cherished it and requested for the title. “What’s your title?” the bartender requested. “Margarita,” she replied.
The legend grew from there, spreading on each side of the border and turning into a global bar staple. While followers can discover margaritas just about anyplace, they don’t style fairly the identical as contained in the Kentucky Club.
“Mostly due to custom and the eye to service,” mentioned Alejandro Acosta, a 45-year-old Juárez native who’s been a membership patron for all of his grownup life.
Newer to the membership, El Paso resident Marina Streep says the lure is greater than the tequila, made sweet-and-sour. It’s discovering a spot the place time can stand nonetheless for a bit, lengthy sufficient for household and mates to get pleasure from a lunch of quesadillas and flautas, and soak within the festive air. “I like it. I really like the meals. I really like the individuals. I really like the music.”
That’s the cue for a favourite on the jukebox: A buyer had requested waiter Oscar Chavez for a neighborhood favourite. He chosen one of many membership’s hottest songs — a tune that routinely kicks off a bar-wide sing-along — about Juárez’s long-gone and equally well-known Noa Noa bar. Legendary singer Juan Gabriel immortalized that place, the place he acquired his begin singing on Avenida Juárez down the road from the Kentucky Club. El Noa Noa has since shut down. Not the Kentucky Club.
“The Kentucky won’t ever die,” Chavez mentioned. “It has a variety of historical past.”
Angela Kocherga is an award-winning multimedia journalist who has devoted her profession to reporting in regards to the Southwest border and Mexico. In 2019, she earned a Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University for brave reporting in Latin America. She served as Mexico bureau chief and border correspondent for a bunch of U.S. tv stations. Kocherga at the moment is information director for public radio station KTEP in El Paso and contributes tales to the Texas Newsroom and NPR.
Alfredo Corchado is the chief editor for Puente News Collaborative and the previous Mexico/Border Correspondent for The Dallas Morning News. He’s the creator of Midnight in Mexico and Homelands. He graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
Sign up for our weekly publication to get extra English-language information protection from EL PAÍS USA Edition
