Harry’s New York Bar , in Paris, is one of the most famous and oldest cocktail bars still in operation. From the 1920s, American tourists were famously instructed to tell cab drivers to bring them to “Sank Roo Doe Noo” (5 rue Daunou, the bar’s address) and made it their first port of call when they were eager for a reminder of home. At Harry’s, they could eat “chiens chauds” (hot dogs) and drink good beer (a rarity in the France of old) at its mahogany bar—said to have been imported from the States—surrounded by sports and college memorabilia hanging from the wood-paneled walls. And, of course, there were cocktails.
The New York Bar, as it was then called, was opened by retired jockey Tod Sloan in 1911 and fast became a magnet for sportsmen and journalists. An inveterate gambler and poor manager, he quickly sold his interest to another jockey, Milton Henry. Henry sold off during World War I, but in 1920, Nell Henry, his by then ex-wife, bought it back. She managed to attract a new crowd, in particular thanks to the basement’s cabaret. Offering a revolving lineup of good American musicians with no cover charge, it was one of the very few places open between dinner time and the opening of the dance clubs where patrons were not forced to order champagne or harassed by bar girls.
When McElhone, a renowned bartender with international experience, bought the place (and added his name to that of the bar), he built on this solid foundation. A congenial character, he got on famously with the great sportsmen, journalists, and artists of the lost generation who patronized his bar. Harry’s became the place to see and be seen for the increasing number of US tourists attracted by Paris for its romance—and its (legal) bars.
McElhone’s keen marketing instinct also helped out. His team would regularly come up with drinks to celebrate world events (or mock prohibition: the Scofflaw, for instance), organize beer drinking contests, or spread fantastic stories about patrons visiting with strange pets such as lions and panthers. The bar was also the founding “trap” of the International Bar Flies, a drinkers’ association, in 1924, and to this day organizes straw polls for each US presidential election. Friends in the press would relay each initiative and create more publicity.
During World War II, McElhone fled to London, and the authorities seized the bar. After Paris’s liberation, Harry’s found a growing French clientele, among which were the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre. When McElhone died in 1958, his son Andy took over. He was followed in 1989 by McElhone’s grandson Duncan. Today, Harry’s is run by the latter’s wife and their son.
According to bar lore, Harry’s is also the birthplace of legendary cocktails such as the Bloody Mary, the Sidecar, the White Lady, and the French 75. See Bloody Mary; Sidecar; White Lady; and French 75. These mostly bogus claims only came up after McElhone’s death in 1958. Some are particularly surprising: for instance, back in 1922 McElhone himself had attributed the Sidecar to bartender Malachi McGarry of Buck’s Club in London.
This insistence to claim drinks they didn’t create is all the more confusing since the truth would barely make a dent in the bar’s reputation: it is for its antiquated charms and the legendary figures who drank (and made drinks) there that tourists keep on flocking through its famed revolving doors, not for the drinks that were supposedly invented there.
See also McElhone, Henry “Harry.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 12, 1962.
Reynolds, Bruce. Paris with the Lid Lifted. New York: A. L. Burt, 1927.
Woon, Basil. The Paris That’s Not in the Guidebooks. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1931.
By: François Monti