Shakespeare's Pub
That world famous den of inequity located in the "Zona Viva"
(The Live Zone) in Guatemala City.
"...To drink or not to drink. That is the question, wethrt ' tis nobler
to suffer the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by inbibing
end them."
Here are some patrons intent on a World Series Baseball game
Shakespeare's Pub where literary allusions are part of the atmosphere,
we now quote a novel "The Long Night of White Chickens" by Francisco
Goldman. the novel is about Guatemala and there is a description of Shakespeare's
Pub but the name was changed to "Lord Byron's" to protect
the guilty.
"And I took a taxi the few blocks from our hotel to La Zona Viva where
Lord Byron's is located in the basement mall beneath a twin-towered
condo complex. It's a very eunelaborate bar. You walk down the stairs out
of the pine-smokey air and into the bar's saturated stench of stale beer
abd wet dog hair. The dog, a mastiff sized mongrel, is always sitting on
the floor just inside the door, its ugly flanks mottled with mange. A dart
board, a bumper pool table; the bar refrigirator plastered with bumper stickers
(Reagan-Bush, U.S.M.C., M.I.N., names and logos of oil and oil exploration
companies, et cetera); baseball or football betting pool schemes taped to
the walls. It was a slow night, two women, three men at the bar, the tables
all empty, when I walked in. No one recoignized me, I didn't recoignized
any of them-I realize now, having recently been back there several times,
that the Lord Byron's expats are the least likely to ever even glance
at the Guatemalan newspaper or to watch Guatemalan news on television. That
night on the television over the bar was off, but in the last year they've
had it hooked up to the satellite that brings American television to the
condo towers: usually, these days, it's tuned in to the Chicago Cubs games
broadcast by the Chicago superstation, or the Armed Forces Radio and Television
Network, or to the a cable sports channel (once, when I recently happened
to be there, Harry Caray, the famous Chicago sports announcer, even sent
greetings to "the lord Byron's Cubs Fan Club" in Guatemala
City, Guatemala, all the way down there in Central America!").
Join the regulars watching the games or for interesting points of view of
Guatemala.
Shakespeare's Pub
Innkeeper Valerie Randall
13 Calle 1-15, Zona 10
Sotano Local # 6
Cuidad de Guatemala
Tel. 332-1550
Return to LAFTA & BUSINESS Guatemala City homepage
Return to LAFTA & BUSINESS Guatemala homepage
Return to LAFTA & BUSINESS homepage