We thought we’d been to most of the oldest Tiki Bars in the country – in fact we wrote this article that we thought had the five oldest Tiki Bars (since updated) – but we were wrong. See we did our research via the internet and of course went to those we could (three of them as it turned out). In that article we penned the second oldest as the Tonga Hut in Hollywood, however since we almost literally tripped over what we believe is the second oldest Tiki Bar in the nation.

Juarez, Mexico was pretty raunchy. When I began going at 17 or 18, the main strip (Juarez Avenue) was made up of bar after bar; it was a 5 lane, one-way street lined on both sides with flashing neon signs and rhythmic beating from speakers pointed out to the street.

Then in 2010 Juarez became the murder capital of the world. Thousands of people died in this city as an outcome of a violent war between two rival drug gangs. As a result, tourism – the economic driving force of this part of city – all but dried up.

Few historic bars in the United States have the pedigree of Seattle, Washington’s oldest bar, Merchant’s Café. While a lot of bars in the U.S. may be old, and many others have a pretty sordid past, it’s not always easy to find them in the same place.  So you can imagine how happy we were to find them both at Merchant’s.

I first went to a bar in Juarez, Mexico when I was 17 years old. Every Thursday night the bar and nightclubs that lined Juarez Avenue (called “the strip”) would host what they called, Drink and Drown nights. For less than $5 you could enter, dance and drink all you wanted – shots or beer – all night long.