St Joe’s Parish
A legendary barman gets his due
[ CAIRO ]
THE GUY ON THE LEFT in this photograph, taken in 1942 and originally published in Life magazine, is Joe Scialom. The setting is the Long Bar at Shepheard’s in Cairo, then one of the most famous hotels in the world. Joe was head barman and he worked in white jacket, black bow tie and eight languages, acting as banker, adviser, umpire and father confessor to his clients. During his tenure the Long Bar was known as St Joe’s Parish, and he ministered according to a philosophy of ‘Mix well, but shake politics’. His place in bartending history was secured by the invention of the Suffering Bastard, a potent cocktail that continues to be included in all good mixologist manuals.
Joe was tending the bar 60 years ago this month when the Egyptian people took to the streets in protest against British rule. This was a considerably more violent affair than last January’s Arab Spring and, on what came to be known as Black Saturday
(26 January 1952), Cairo was set aflame and Shepheard’s burned to the ground. Joe escaped the inferno ‘slightly ruffled and really annoyed’. He subsequently found work across town at another hotel, but after being imprisoned by Nasser during the Suez Crisis of 1956 he quit the country.
During Joe’s time at Shepheard’s, one of the many guests he befriended was Conrad Hilton. When he left Egypt the acquaintance was renewed, leading to Joe taking up a job in Puerto Rico at the Caribe Hilton. From there he moved to Cuba and the Havana Hilton, until he was displaced by revolution once again and chased out of the country by Fidel Castro. He moved to New York and the Waldorf Astoria, and thereafter travelled frequently, opening bars for Hilton hotels in Paris, Rome and London. Joe’s final job was at Windows on the World in the then-newly opened World Trade Centre, before he finally retired to Florida where he lived into his 90s. He survived to see the fiery destruction of another of his bars on 9/11, passing away as recently as 2004.
Andrew Humphreys
