Peter Café Sport

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The Peter Café Sport in Horta

The Peter Café Sport is a café and restaurant in Horta , the main town of Faial , an island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. It is considered to be one of the most internationally known cafés, especially as a meeting place for the worldwide sailing scene.

Known for its history, gin and tonic and chocolate cake, the café is a standard stopover for circumnavigators. The Peter Café Sport is frequently mentioned by journalists and writers in their publications around the world. The American news magazine Newsweek listed the place among the best bars in the world.

Since 1986, the café has been part of the Museu de Scrimshaw, a historical museum for handicrafts made from whale bones. Whaling was carried out in the Azores until 1983.

history

View over the bay of Horta with the marina
In the Peter Café Sport (2003)
The entrance of the restaurant

The merchant Ernesto Lourenço S. Azevedo (1859-1931) bought a small building at the port of Horta in 1901 to sell his handcrafted goods in the Azores such as baskets, ropes, embroidery and hats, for which he in 1888 at the industrial exhibition Exposição Industrial de Lisboa (now FIL ) was awarded a gold medal. He gave the business the English name Azorean House and also began selling drinks with the help of his two sons Ernesto and Henrique. He took advantage of the strategic location at the port of Horta, the only place where people and goods from outside could get onto the island of Faial.

Bottle of Gin do Mar

In 1918 son Henrique Lourenço Ávila Azevedo (1895–1975) took over the business and now moved into a building next door. There he opened today's Café Sport . He chose the name to express his enthusiasm for sports, which was reflected in his passion for football, rowing and billiards. The introduction of the gin and tonic in Café Sport, which has remained a popular drink in the restaurant to this day, goes back to him . Azevedo got to know it through the English who were on duty here in connection with the local submarine cable station. The other features of the café, such as the American eagle symbol or the wooden furnishings, have also existed since 1918.

The café achieved its current worldwide fame due to the increasing number of international guests. At first it became the hangout for the mostly English telegraph employees, who also got their gin bottles for home consumption from Café Sport. From 1921, Dutch tugs were also stationed in Horta, which were used for sea rescue in the North Atlantic. Up until the Second World War they were a major revitalization of the small port of Horta. The blue and black colors that they used for their own paintwork and also gave Café Sport for its exterior painting has remained a characteristic of the café to this day. Models of various tugs, whose captains were on friendly terms with Azevedo, can also be seen in the café.

Right at the beginning of the Second World War, the HMS Lusitania II of the British Navy suffered a stern damage and spent the rest of the war here. The munitions and supply officer of the HMS Lusitania II recognized a great similarity between the son of the Café Sport owner and his own son Peter and therefore also called him Peter. The nickname, which was stuck from then on, became the official name of the café shortly afterwards.

As the war progressed, Hortas harbor became an Allied base , and a total of 1,500 British and American ships moored here, mainly in the field of replenishment. After the war, movement in the port and thus in Café Sport decreased sharply, especially after the discontinuation of American aid deliveries to post-war Germany, whose ships made their stopovers here.

It was only with the increase in sport and recreational sailors in the 1960s that the most famous café in the port of Hortas experienced increasing international attention again. The strategic location of the port, its existing infrastructure for the needs of international shipmen, and the reputation of the place, which was spread by the seamen who used to be stationed here and their records, were reasons for the increasing number of visitors. International regattas increasingly passed the place, and the increasingly affluent middle class of the industrialized nations increased the number of international sailors. In 1975 the café moved to a larger neighboring building, where it has remained unchanged since then. There, to this day, sailors have their mail sent to Café Sport, get supplies for ships or buy the paint there, traditionally to be immortalized on the quay wall, which further defines the café's reputation as a well-known meeting place for sailors.

In 1986 Horta received a modern marina , with increased capacity and, as a result, a further increase in visitor numbers. Most recently, the cruise ships moored here caused a further increase in international visitors. After the death of the founding grandson José Azevedo in 2006, his son José Henrique Azevedo has run the Peter Café Sport in the fourth generation of the family. He started to work here in 1967 with his first summer job and has been with the company since 1978. He also holds positions in various international sailing organizations.

management

  • 1918–1931: Ernesto Lourenço S. Azevedo (April 20, 1859 - March 24, 1931)
  • 1931–1975: Henrique Lourenço Ávila Azevedo (June 16, 1895 - May 3, 1975)
  • 1975–2005: José "Peter" Azevedo († 2006)
  • since 2005: José Henrique Gonçalves Azevedo (* 1960)

The company has been family-owned since it was originally founded in 1901, and is always run by the son.

Honors

For its long service to sailors from all over the world, the restaurant has received numerous honors from sailing institutions, the postal service and government agencies, such as the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Portugal , awarded in 2003 by President Jorge Sampaio . The restaurant also has a document from Pope John Paul II about an apostolic blessing .

The blue Peter Café Sport in Parque das Nações in Lisbon

Branches of the Peter Café Sport

There are some more cafes same name as branches, the Peter Café Sport Porto 's historic Ribeira -Altstadtviertel on the banks of the Douro in Porto , the Peter Café Sport Oeiras at the Marina of Oeiras , and Peter's Café Sport Parque das Nações on the Parque das Nações Expo site in Lisbon.

Exhibit in the Museu de Scrimshaw

The Scrimshaw Museum

Peter's Scrimshaw Museum is part of the café . It is located on the upper floor and opened in 1986. It is an important collection of scrimshaw works of art . This local handicraft made from the bones of the whales dates back to when whaling was still practiced here (until 1983).

The museum shows the collection of local scrimshaw works of art begun by Henrique Lourenço Ávila Azevedo (1895–1975). They were originally part of the range of goods sold in the Azorean House . Henrique Azevedo kept particularly beautiful pieces himself and began to keep the most skillful specimens here, especially when whaling began to decline in the early 1960s. His son, the current Café Sport owner José, then built up today's collection. The museum has been showing this collection to the public on the upper floor of the building since 1986, alongside thematically related exhibits such as scrimshaw tools, photos, etc. a.

Triathlon competition

In 2012 the 16th Peter Café Sport Triatlo took place, a triathlon variant. First twelve nautical miles were covered windsurfing from the island of São Jorge through an area crossed by whales, sharks and dolphins to the island of Pico . There, on a mountain bike ride, a distance of 40 km to the village of Madalena was ridden, where height differences of up to 1000 meters had to be overcome. Finally we rowed 5 km to the destination in the port of Horta. The winner Rui Câncio needed 5 hours and 21 minutes.

Web links

Commons : Peter Café Sport  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German-language entry on the Peter Sport Café at www.visitazores.com, accessed on April 22, 2016
  2. ↑ a b c The most famous pub in the Atlantic - Online article from April 16, 2013 in the travel magazine Merian , accessed on April 22, 2016
  3. ↑ Page on Peter Café Sport (English) on www.worldcruisingguide.net, accessed on April 23, 2016
  4. ↑ Literature list with quotes relating to Peter Café Sport on the café's website (English and Portuguese), accessed on April 23, 2016
  5. ↑ a b c d e f History of Peter Café Sport on the café's website (English and Portuguese), accessed on April 22, 2016
  6. ↑ Michael Bussmann: Azores. 5th edition, Michael Müller Reisebuch-Verlag , Erlangen 2013 ( ISBN 978-3-89953-771-0 ), p. 352
  7. ^ List of awards with copies of the documents and medals on the Peter Café Sport website , accessed on April 23, 2016
  8. ↑ Entry by Peter Café Sport Porto on www.localporto.com, accessed on April 22, 2016
  9. ↑ Entry by Peter Café Sport Oeiras on Tripadvisor, accessed on April 22, 2016
  10. ↑ Entry by Peter Café Sport Parque das Nações on Tripadvisor, accessed on April 22, 2016
  11. ^ Website of the Peter's Scrimshaw Museum on the website of Peter Café Sport (English and Portuguese), accessed on April 22, 2016
  12. ↑ Website for Peter Café Sport Triatlo 2012 , accessed on April 22, 2016