By Belize Live News Staff: As San Ignacio Resort Hotel celebrates its 50th anniversary, the property is turning back the pages to the place where it all began, a bar whose name still stirs memories across the west: the Stork Club.
In 1954, Mr. Escandar Bedran opened his first business venture in San Ignacio, a bar on present day Hudson Street named after the famous New York City club. Alongside his wife Paulita, he sold sandwiches, cupcakes and bread pudding, and the little establishment quickly became the town’s gathering place. The club hosted dances, weddings and functions of every kind, poured Tiger Nail, the rum Mr. Bedran distilled himself at Cool Shade Farms, and at various times housed a community center, an ice cream parlor and even classrooms for Sacred Heart College. When Hurricane Hattie struck in 1961, the Stork Club sheltered local families.
Fire destroyed the club in 1968, and another blaze in 1972 burned over 28 homes. Mr. Bedran built on. In 1976 he raised the San Ignacio Hotel, with Bedran Hall as its first phase, identical to his beloved Stork Club and serving the same joyful purpose.
When a new bar opened under the San Ignacio Resort Hotel in 1996, the year Mr. Bedran retired and passed management to his daughters, the family debated what to call it. His answer was firm: there is only one name which can best be used for the new bar, The Stork Club. It opened December 13, 1996, thrived as the place to be, and served the town until the hotel’s Lobby Bar took the torch in 2010.
Fifty years on, the only jungle in town still dances to the rhythm the Stork Club started.
