BEIRUT: In the days of flashy pubs and pounding music, the dimly lit wooden facade of Captain’s Cabin stands out as a relic of a bygone era. Now over 50 years old, the ramshackle bar is one of Beirut’s historic landmarks. Tucked away along Sadat Street, a few meters off the main Hamra Street, Captain’s Cabin has weathered the storm of decades of war. Andre Toriz, an amicable man of Mexican origin, had just been born when his father and three Middle East Airlines pilots begun looking for a place to drink and play cards away from their wives’ reproachful looks. It was 1964 when the four men rented an old fish shop, covered its yellow tiles in wood, and transformed it into their new getaway. “My father was the only one among them not to be a pilot, but they all called him captain,” Toriz told The Daily Star. As more men started spending their layovers there, the place was expanded, and opened as a fully licensed bar and restaurant in 1972. Alongside its original decor, which inc...
