oldest bar in Paraná expected to reopen in 2024

Door closing and tears falling in front of a sad scene like a broken glass. O Stuart, the oldest bar in Paraná, the second in Brazil, and one of the most traditional in Curitiba, ended a 119-year cycle last Monday (04). The corner of Praça Osório and Alameda Cabral, in the Center, a meeting point for famous and anonymous Curitiba residents, was silent. The expectation is that the place will reopen in the first half of 2024 with new owners.

To the customers who pass in front of Stuart, curious and suspicious glances into the bar. With the doors and drink bottles closed, the atmosphere is one of apprehension about the future. Will Stuart lose his identity? Will the paintings that prove Curitiba’s history and folklore characters be removed?

Will the menu with notable dishes such as bull testicles, frog meat and alligator tail end? And Jorge, better known as Alemão, an old-school waiter who drinks beer using a ruler, was fired? Questions that hang in the air…

The questions above should remain in the coming days, as it has not been officially announced who will “run” the business. It is speculated that a chain of bars in Curitiba carried out the deal. O StuartBar came to be for sale in 2018, at that time for Nelson Ferriwhich charged R$ 1.1 million. Nobody bought it. Nelson Ferri died three years later after losing a fight against cancer.

The history of Bar Stuart

In 1904, on Rua Comendador Araújo, Joseph Richter and the Stuart couple (origin of the bar’s name), founded Bar e Confeitaria Stuart. It was also called a confectionery shop, as the establishment sold sweets, snacks and ice cream. His employees were the brothers Afonso and Leopoldo Mehl.

In 1934, the Mehl brothers bought Stuart, and it started operating on the corner of Rua Voluntários da Pátria and Rua XV de Novembro, in Boca Maldita. In the 1950s, the owner of the building in which the bar was located, Artur Hauer, decided to demolish the building. Constâncio Bocardin, another merchant in the region, made the Mehl brothers a proposal to give them his place, where a pharmacy was located.

The Mehls accepted the proposal in 1954, and the bar moved to the location where it remains today, in front of Praça Osório, on the corner of Alameda Cabral. Three years later, in 1957, the building that was being built on the bar’s former site was ready, and the owner invited the brothers to return there.

They did not reach a consensus, and the partnership between the brothers was dissolved. Afonso took over Bar Stuart and Leopoldo opened Confeitaria Iguaçu.

A few years later, Afonso passed Bar Stuart on to his brother-in-law, Ronald Abrão, “Ligeirinho”, who had already worked at Stuart as a teenager. Ligeirinho was one of the icons of Curitiba’s bars, it began with the tradition of holding daily raffle draws worth an animal, such as a suckling pig, turkey and chicken to customers at the table. “The raffle is going on”, he shouted excitedly as he wrote everything down on paper and with a good pen in his apron.

Ligeirinho left the company to set up his own business, and Dino remained in charge until 2008, when Nelson Ferri took over. With a peculiar friendliness, Ferri resumed events on Saturdays at Stuart, attracting new customers and tourists.
But Ferri passed away in April 2021.

The position was taken over by Carlos, son of Nelson Ferri, who had the collaboration of exponents of bohemia and good conversation.

Famous characters

Bar Stuart was a point of journalistic investigation. The news was often there, in the middle of one portion or another, journalists would come out with a bomb. The bar also hosted politicians such as Roberto Requião, Jaime Lernee, governor Ratinho Junior and his father Ratinho, current president Lula, former football players such as Romário and the late Sicupira.

Artists, such as the Curitiba poet Paulo Leminski, were regular visitors to Stuart. Leminski had his usual table where he used to sit, at the entrance to the bar, and write his poems with paper, pen and a glass of vodka.

Bar Stuart, a 119-year-old heritage site in Paraná. As Leminski would say during his visits to the venue, “Rio is the Sea, Curitiba, the bar”. May the closed door be just one see you soon. We miss you already!