The oldest bar in Aruba nonetheless attracts an enormous crowd virtually any time it’s open, even when as of late vacationers are inclined to outnumber oil staff elbowing their method into Charlie’s Bar for a chilly beer or rum drink.
Arriving on a weekday afternoon on the bar in downtown San Nicholas — historically an industrial city however currently attracting extra guests because of its vibrant arts scene — we’re momentarily stymied by a doorman blocking our entry. Too many individuals inside, he says, pleasant however agency: appears that the native fireplace marshal has been laying down the regulation on the bar’s capability, significantly for the reason that pandemic.
We take the chance to take in the solar and shoot some pictures of the bar’s colourful exterior and the much more vibrant murals adorning a lot of San Nicholas’ buildings; after only a few minutes, some company depart and we’re seated at a small desk close to the bar.
Out of the recent solar however nonetheless topic to Aruba’s well-known heat breezes by an open doorway, it takes a minute for our eyes to regulate and take within the bar’s inside, which seems to be a cacophonous expertise for each the ears and eyes. It’s simple sufficient to snoop on conversations among the many patrons squeezed into seats on the small bar — we shortly study that a number of are visiting from our dwelling state of Rhode Island and close by Massachusetts — and shortly make a sport of figuring out acquainted police and fireplace division badges festooned on the partitions and ceiling beams.
The mementos left behind by first responders from all around the world is only one aspect of the Charlie’s Bar “decor,” which is mostly a historical past lesson in and of itself. Beer mugs, Dutch clogs, license plates, fishing gear and outdated newspaper clippings discover a place amid the ephemera gathered over greater than 80 years for the reason that bar opened.
Based lower than two months earlier than the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941 by Charlie and Marie Brouns, Charlie’s Bar initially served staff on the close by refinery that might turn out to be a significant supply of oil for the Allies. Charlie additionally discovered frequent trigger with fellow sailors having fun with their time ashore between dodging German U-boats that lurked within the waters of the Caribbean. The refinery shut down within the Nineteen Seventies, however the Brouns’ son, additionally Charlie, saved the bar going by shifting focus to draw the rising variety of vacationers coming to the island — at the very least those adventurous sufficient to enterprise away from the seashores and discover what was then a nonetheless rough-around-the-edges city.
At this time, Charlie Brouns III and his sister, Montsy, stick with it the custom at Charlie’s Bar. And whereas San Nicholas has modified principally for the higher — town’s murals and artwork galleries now make it a reliable cease on the island’s tourism path — Charlie’s Bar stays roughly because it all the time was.
Certain, there have been adjustments, some aimed squarely on the shorts and t-shirt crowd. The bar now boasts about its connections with native fishermen that offer the contemporary seafood on the menu, and as of late patrons can dine on Hoere Hop — a neighborhood creole calamari and shrimp dish — and New Zealand lamb chops in addition to burgers and fries. There’s even personal eating provided within the evenings.
Charlie’s Bar retains the type of ramshackle look that virtually breathes historical past and familiarity. In brief, this place oozes character in a method that few different watering holes in Aruba can match.
It’s solely open from 11:30 a.m. to six p.m., and getting there takes an excellent 40-minute drive from the high-rise lodge district the place most island guests keep. Nevertheless it’s effectively definitely worth the effort for an genuine style of Aruba at Charlie’s Bar, which was right here earlier than the primary inns and casinos, and is more likely to nonetheless be serving chilly Heinekens and Amstels to visiting “Boozers” lengthy after the final cruise ship disappears over the horizon.
