Cozumel Restaurant Time Machine

[El Graduado]

Santiago’s opened in the 1990s. Instead of saying “restaurant time machine,” I should had said “Restaurant WAY, WAY BACK MACHINE”.

I don’t think the Naked Turtle building will be around much longer. Did you know Oscar, who runs Sr. Iguanas next to Mezcalito’s, started off working as a waiter at the Naked Turtle?

I was reading a local Cozumel newspaper and I saw some articles that mentioned these things:

“A large cache of pistols and cartridges was intercepted by the aduana. These firearms were hidden aboard an American boat Rajah in waters off Campeche, but it is unknown where they were headed.”

“Municipal police have detained a youth accused of breaking into a home and stealing a pair of gold earrings and a quantity of cash.”

“There were several reports of gunfire late last night, but the police were unable to locate the perpetrators.”

“The port captain closed the port yesterday, without prior notice or explanation. When asked by a reporter why he closed the port, he replied ‘I am not obligated to explain my acts to the public'".

Oh… Did I mention the paper I was reading was the ORION, and the edition was Thursday, November 25, 1926 ??

There were also some ads for restaurants in that paper. Here they are:

I think “La Morena” was where Restaurante Chichen Itza was in the late 60s early 70s.

“La Perla del Caribe”. Humm… I wonder if that was where the present one got its name?

The “Gran Hotel Louvre” was one of the very first hotels in Cozumel.

Chankanaab bottling company was one of TWO Cozumel soda bottling plants back then.

Here was the baseball team, the DOS EQUIS" (the XXs):

 

[Christi]

I LOVE this thread! I've only been here since 2000 and visited infrequently before that - but I remember several of these places and I remember when Acuario closed I was so so sad - Las Gaviotas at Sol Cabañas was another favorite of mine. I alsohv ae fond memories of Sonora Grill and the original La Mission.

I remember in November 2001, my Mom was visiting. She flew into Cancun and had to do the ferry - but there was a severe storm so the passenger ferry was closed. These were the days before international cell phone coverage or wi-fi or smart phones. They ended up routing people over to Calica to cross on the car ferry. She was scared and I was a nervous wreck worrying about her. Beto (of La Mission) happened to be on that ferry crossing and delivered my Mom safely to me. He was a complete stranger to her, but when she told him she was coming to visit her daughter, he knew enough about me (I was a daily lunch guest) to ease her mind .

Thanks Graduado for this fun throwback thread and as always your deep love and historical knowledge of the island!

 

[mstevens]

Dave, Sal de Mar belongs on MSTEVENS Magna Opus Restaurant list, not on my "time travel" pre-1985 list. Have you tried their hamburgers?

... and it's been on that list for over a year.

I miss El Capi Navegante.

 

[El Graduado]

Thanks, Christi!

I posted this a few years back: "More than 30 years ago, I designed Beto's first logo for his restaurant La Mission (there was only one location then; between Calles 10 and 15 on the south side of Juarez). La Mission was only open in the evening, starting around 6PM. Beto's tag-line at the bottom of the ad was "Tacos 'n' Chilis, Onions 'n' Beans." He thought that one up, not me! I can remember discussing the spelling of the name "Mission/Mision" with him when I began sketching out the logo. Though my memory is cloudy, I think he said he wanted to spell it the English way, as the ad we were inserting it in was also in English. I guess it worked, because it has always been spelled that way in all his other restaurants ever since.

In those days:
It was 7.50 USD from the plaza to San Francisco Beach by taxi.
All our phone numbers had only five digits.
You could rent a three bedroom house ON THE MALECON for 50 USD per night.
On Sundays Primo fried fish at the Celarain lighthouse.
You could swim in Chankanaab Lagoon.
The beaches on the east side were full of tar, not seaweed.
The passenger ferry cost 1.00 (one!) USD one way to Playa and took about an hour and a half.
The car ferry went to Puerto Morelos and took between 4 to 6 hours.
We had a hydrofoil that ran daily from the pier downtown to Cancun. Trip took 1 hour and cost 16.00 USD one way.
The discos were Scaramouche, Grips, Moby Dick, Joman's, and Hipopotamo.
We only had 13 dive shops on the island.
A lobster dinner cost 6.00 (six!) USD.
Two tank dives on Palancar were 30.00 USD and included a big lunch on the beach.
You could fly to Playa on Aerocozumel for 8.00 USD one way.
You could fly from Cozumel to Cancun for 18.00 USD one way.
A 7-night stay and six days of diving cost 322.00USD.

 

[El Graduado]

Mark, I’ll tell you a funny story about the owner of the Capi Navegante, Pepe Irrezont. Pepe liked to fish with a cast net for lisa (mullet) in the waters near the muelle fiscal. One morning, I was sitting on the seawall watching him pitch his net, haul it in, check it for fish, and then pitch it out again. His technique involved holding a part of the skirt of the net in his teeth. After one of his casts, he started preparing for the next and as soon as he put the net’s edge in his mouth, he spit it back out and started cursing. Back then we did not have a sewer system on the island, and all the raw sewage just drained into the sea if you didn’t have a septic tank (all the malecon shops and houses had concrete conduits running straight out to the water). It turns out, Pepe had managed to catch a brown trout in his net and bit into it when he put his net in his mouth. I wasn’t the only one to see it happen, and poor Pepe was the butt of jokes for a while after that.

The year Pepe opened Capi Naveganti was the year Pilar Luna and I excavated the Maya offerings from one of the cenotes in the La Quebrada cave system near Chankanaab.

 

[El Graduado]

I posted this article once on Laura's website, Cozumel4you, but since this thread is about old Cozumel restaurants, I'll post it again here.

I knew a little about the man who started the Mayaluum Hotel on Cozumel back in 1956, but the operative word here is little. Reading the blurbs in various guide books about Cozumel and in the “history” sections on local websites, all I was told was that he was an “American born in England of Russian parents” and that he was a symphony conductor before moving to Cozumel and opening his hotel on the south corner of Calle 8 and Av. Melgar. I heard through the “grapevine” that he also had a nightclub and restaurant attached to the hotel and that he was a good cook, but that was it.

Since this man played such an important part in getting the tourist industry off the ground on Cozumel, I thought I’d like to know a little more about him. By searching out newspaper articles of the day, old letters, ads, archived documents and published interviews with the guy, what I found was that he was much, much more interesting that I had been led to believe.

Ilya L. Chamberlain was born on August 2, 1915, in London, England to parents holding Russian passports, but his father was a relative of famous British politicians Austen and Neville Chamberlain and traces his roots back to the 1830s in Birmingham England. Ilya was a violin prodigy; he played at age eight in concerts conducted by Sir John Barbirolli and in European venues with other famous conductors. Ilya later studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and taught at Oxford University. He spoke Russian, English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, and Portuguese.

In his mid-20’s, Ilya worked as assistant conductor at La Scala di Milano opera house in Italy during Mussolini’s time in power as well as conducting symphony orchestras in other countries. Later, he became a naturalized American citizen and worked as a press agent in New York. In 1939 he was working for Sonnemann Agency in New York, where he was tasked by the Brazilian Coffee Import Bureau to design and implement a campaign to get Americans to drink more coffee. In March of 1949, Ilya traveled back to Italy to visit his friend, the exiled American mobster Lucky Luciano, and was injured in an automobile accident during his stay. This visit was documented in a Life Magazine article that same year.

Returning to the US, Ilya moved to Austin, Texas and mounted art exhibitions featuring Mexican artists in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., among several other US cities.

In 1955, Ilya read the glowing article about Cozumel that Richard Humphries wrote for Holiday Magazine that year and then went to the island to see for himself on a short two-day visit. At the time, the only available lodgings were rooms in private homes and the 18-room Hotel Playa (today’s Museo de la Isla), which was still “mothballed” after it closed due to lack of business soon after it was built in 1938.

More of this story in the next post...

 

[El Graduado]

Ilya part 2

Sensing an opportunity, Ilya went back to the States and gathered up enough operating capital to launch a new venture on the island. Returning the same year, he began remodeling two rental houses next door to each other on Avenida Melgar, which he opened as the ten-room Hotel Mayaluum in 1956. The paperwork may have been a little “iffy;” the new company, Mayaluum, S. A., listed its manager as Alberto Molina (who lived in Merida) and its sub-manager as Reyes Garcia. In reality, Ilya and his wife ran the whole shebang. Ilya’s wife was Mary Helen Byrnes, better known by her nicknames Jan or Janna. She was a fashion designer in New York, born in 1927 in Michigan.

Shortly after the inauguration of the Hotel Mayaluum, Ilya opened an adjoining nightclub named the Tumben Mayaluum. Local musicians as well as bands booked from Mexico City played live for the guests. Martinis, Manhattans, and Gibsons, were the order of the day. The hotel’s restaurant soon became well known for its Italian and French dishes that Ilya and his wife prepared.

The new hotel attracted jet-setters and movers-and-shakers from around the world, all returning home with great tales to tell about the oasis of culture, music, chess, and haute-cuisine they found on the beautiful tropical island of Cozumel. Along with these word-of-mouth recommendations, Ilya used his experience as a promoter and press agent to help put Cozumel on the map, pulling strings and calling in favors to get articles published about the island in newspapers all around the US.

Soon after his Mayaluum proved successful, others built hotels on the island; The Hotel Playa was resurrected and renovated by a Joaquin/Barbachano partnership in 1957. Cabañas Del Caribe (torn down recently to make room for the new Westin) was opened by the Gonzalez family in 1958 and another joint venture by the Barbachano and Joaquin families, the Playa Azul, initially consisting of just six bungalows, opened the same year. The Barbachano family’s hotel, located right across the street from the Mayaluum, was inaugurated in December 20, 1959 as the Hotel Islander, but it was not operational until 1961 and by then had changed its name to Hotel Caribe Isleño. In December of 1962, Fernando Barbachano opened the Hotel Cozumel Caribe, now only functioning as a beach club/restaurant with just a few of the old rooms in the tower leased out as apartments.

Above: The Mayaluum occupied two connected buildings on the southern corner of Calle 8 at Avenida Melgar, one block north of the Hotel Playa.

In 1958, the then 21-year-old explorer and future author Michel Peissel was a guest of Ilya’s at Hotel Mayaluum. It was during Peissel’s solitary walk down the entire Quintana Roo shoreline (this was prior to any roads existing on the coast) that the young man made a short detour to visit Cozumel. In his 1962 book, The Lost World of Quintana Roo, Peissel mentions that he had martinis with Ilya at his nightclub and stayed at his hotel where he had a nice conversation in French with the restauranteur/hotelier.

In 1959, Ilya began recruiting artists to work for him on the island, where he would provide them with food, lodging, and materials for them to be able to work on their art without worrying about income. This new project was reported on in an article that was published in The Eagle of Bryan, Texas, in November of 1960:

Mayan Art for Museum on Cozumel
An unusual art center is being built in as unlikely as place as one could expect—the remote tropical island of Cozumel, called the Hawaii of the Caribbean. Founder is Ilya Chamberlain, an American born in London of Russian parents, now a Mexican resident. Chamberlain and his wife, Janne, came to Cozumel for a two-day vacation five years ago, promptly fell in love with the quiet, isolated, Mayan-inhabited island off eastern Yucatan. With a few hundred dollars they managed to scrape up they opened a small hotel which has prospered. Now he wants to open an art center and is well on his way to realizing his dream. The project has the blessing of state Gov. Aaron Merino Fernandez, plans have been drawn up, and most of the $20,000 he needs is in sight. The Mayan-type building, typical of the area, was designed by Kenneth Frizzell who worked on plans for the U. S Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair. The center is mainly for Mexican artists, poor and struggling but with talent, particularly those living in Yucatan, Quintana Roo and Cozumel. Chamberlain says there is a surprising amount of talent, going to waste because artists can’t even buy paints and canvas. He plans to furnish what they need, even house and feed them if necessary. Instructors will be recognized Mexican artists. Courses will include not only painting but sculpturing, lithographing, woodcutting, metal engraving. American and other foreign artists will be welcome, Chamberlain says. And the isolated island is a dream spot for them to work in. The hotel project on Cozumel was Chamberlain's first venture into this field. He is proud that “we built the first bathroom on the island.” But art is still his first love, and his art center is taking up most of his time — and money — these days. “Cozumel in the time of the Mayans was the Athens of the New World,” he says. “It may regain its prestige in part.”

Ilya’s wife was the art director of this new endeavor, which they named Instituto de Arte de Cozumel, or IDEAC, the same name as their cable address on Cozumel.

Above: Another short blurb about Ilya was published in a North Carolina newspaper in 1961, showing him playing chess with a Mexican artist in Cozumel.

Ilya Chamberlain in Cozumel, 1960. Photo by Ian Graham.

Above: Mary Helen Byrnes, better known by her nicknames Jan or Janna, in Cozumel in 1960.
Photo by Ian Graham.


In April of 1960, the following article went out over the Associated Press wires:
"MEXICAN SPOT HAS THE CHARM OF BALI HAI. Cozumel, Mexico (AP) -- If you want to go off almost to the end of nowhere, and still remain in a civilized atmosphere, you might try this island of Cozumel. Twenty-five miles long and 15 across at the widest point, it is located 12 miles east of the Yucatan peninsula and is part of the Mexican territory of Quintana Roo. Historically, it once was one of the religious sanctuaries of the ancient and highly civilized Mayan Indians, and was a stepping stone of Cortez in his conquest of Mexico for the Spaniards. Of the islands 3,000 inhabitants about 2,500 live in this town--also Cozumel--on the eastern coast. This is a quiet and peaceful place, with little activity except or bursting growth of vegetation. There are no nightclubs, and only one movie theater which operates two nights a week. It is a busy day when two cars or trucks pass on the principal street. Some have taken advantage of the island's tranquility to come here to read, write, or just rest. Others fish or skin-dive in the crystal waters. The island has not been overrun by tourists, and some residents say they don't want it to. Still, they welcome well-behaved visitors who want to share the island's charm and friendliness. The island is almost crimeless. The only way to get here comfortably is by private plane or yacht, or a daily cargo-passenger plane from Merida, capital of the state of Yucatan. There are two hotels, the Playa, a converted government building, and the small Mayaluum with garden of lush tropical plants. The food, especially at the Mayluum, is good. There, two odd travelers, Ilya Chamberlain and his wife, Janne, can whip up plain or exotic dishes with equal knack. Those wishing to fish or skin-dive should carry their own equipment. There is no adequate rental service at present. Boats now available for fishing are not comfortable for catching big ones. They are converted sailboats with tillers, leaving no room for swivel chairs in the rear. Skin-divers, besides enjoying the underwater beauty, can spear fish and giant crayfish which hang round the coral reefs. The sun is hot, but a balmy breeze constantly flows across the land, and the nights are comfortable."

Cozumel only had 7,808 people living on it at the time. In Ilya’s ad in a 1960 edition of Saturday Review, the hotel’s address was listed simply as “Hotel Mayaluum, Cozumel, Mexico.” The magazine Canadian Motorist said: “Isla de Cozumel isn't the ideal spot for night clubbing, but San Miguel does have its share: One to be exact. And the Tumben Maya Luum (New Maya Land) is it.” To get to Cozumel, you had to fly TAMSA’s DC-3 on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday from Merida. The 80 minute flight was a whopping $22 usd round trip.


More about Ilya in the next post...

 

[El Graduado]

Ilya part 3

On June 11, 1961, another article about Ilya’s art institute appeared in the Mexico City newspaper Excelsior: “Ilya Chamberlain y la pintura en Cozumel,” written by Marcela Del Río Reyes. Later, in November of that same year, Ilya wrote a symphony featuring the oboe, which was performed at an art “happening” in Mexico City and was also reported on in the Excelsior newspaper:

“On November 30, 1961 a group headed by Mathias Goeritz and self-styled as “Los Hartos” (the fed-up ones) joined together to make an exhibition in the Gallery Antonio Souza in Mexico City. Everything happened in just one night, Los Hartos, included a hen and, unforgettably, an egg that Jackson Pollock smashed on some anonymous wall. Consuelo Abascal (hama de casa), participated in that first and last dinner of Los Hartos with a family meal; Benign Alvarado (hobrero), with a carved stone; Octavio Asta (haprendiz, a 7-year-old), with a painting; Francisco Ávalos (hindustrial), with a set of blown glass; José Luis Cuevas (hilustrador), with an expressive vision; Pedro Friedeberg (harquitecto), with a couple of tables; Mathias Goeritz (Hintelectual), with a significant message; Kati Horna (hobjetivista), with a portrait; Innocence the hen (Have), with an egg valued at seventy cents. Agripina Rodríguez (hagricultor), with lots of fruit. Consuelo R. Soto Franco played variations of the symphony "La Harta" for the hoboe, composed by Ilya Chamberlain.”

This exhibition was resurrected and renamed “Los Hartos otra Vez” (The Fed-up Ones, Once More), when it was mounted in 2013 in the Museo Experimental El Eco, in Mexico City. It was a collection of photos and documents of the "Los Hartos" art group, along with a performance of Ilya’s symphony. This exhibition was also included in the exhibition "Challenge to stability. Artistic processes in Mexico, 1952-1967″ at the University Museum of contemporary art, or MUAC.

A page from the symphony “La Harta,” composed by Ilya Chamberlain.

In late 1961, disaster struck. Arsonists burned down Ilya’s art institute on the north corner of the Malecon and Calle 6, just across the street from the old Hotel Playa (today’s Museo de la Isla). The following article was published on December of that year by the Odesa American, in Odessa, Texas:

"Rebuilding Set At Art Gallery. Displeased by the excessive delays in rebuilding his burned-out art gallery on the Isle of Cozumel, Ilya Chamberlain doesn’t foresee reopening in the immediate future. The unique gallery, largest in Mexico, was set afire by two drunks several days ago who flipped lighted cigarettes on the palm-thatched roof. Authorities arrested the pair and are holding them for trial on charges of arson. Some 1,000 originals, including 120 oil paintings, valued at more than $100,000 went up in flames. Thousands of dollars of sculptures also were destroyed. The biggest portion of the works of art had been sent to the little island, 15 miles off the coast of Yucatan in the Caribbean, for the inauguration that was scheduled for this month. President Adolfo Lopez Mateos was to attend the ceremonies and officially open the gallery."

The two arsonists died soon after they were released, in two independent accidents, a fact that started tongues wagging on Cozumel. The rumor running through the island was that Ilya called in a favor from his old Mob buddies.

Although the hotel and nightclub continued to be successful and remained open for a few more years, the arson attack on the art institute took the wind out of his sails and Ilya began to focus on other projects away from Cozumel. On November 4, 1963, he directed Vivienne Burgess, Olive McFarland, and Emrys James, in the first London performance of Howard Koch’s play “The Albatross” at the Theater Royal, in Stratford. The stage scenery was created by Alan Tagg and the play produced by Giles Gilbery and Richard Krakeur. That same year, Ilya planned to film a movie entitled “The Looking Glass” in Naples, Italy and met with Hollywood moguls in the US in regards to production.

Once more taking a new direction, on Dec 11, 1970, Ilya incorporated The Chamberlain Company in Florida. With himself as president, James Gordon Williams, Jr., vice president of research, and Roy Ellis-Brown, director of electronic and mechanical engineering, Ilya used his years of adapting food recipes for large-volume commercial production and in solving physical and chemical problems involved in those large-sized recipes to launch the new business. The Chamberlain Company was soon merged into Noca Foods, of Pompano Beach, Florida. Four years later, Ilya retired from the business, receiving substantial annual royalties from his patents on a soybean fermentation process he developed during his time with the company.

With those royalties, Ilya went to work in a Volvo dealership in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in selling autos to diplomats. Volvo of Washington at 4800 Wisconsin Avenue was soon the “in” place to go and play chess with Ilya and other chess masters, like showroom manager Lenny Schnurmacher. In March, 1978, Ilya began organizing a world championship chess tournament at the Volvo dealership, offering a $15,000 purse out of his own pocket. Chamberlain's top prize of $5,000 was considerably higher than those given in most international tournaments of the time and each of the participating players received a $2,000 appearance fee plus all expenses.

In May of 1978, Lubomir Kavalek, rated as the strongest chess player in the United States and one of the twenty-five strongest in the world, faced Ulf Anderson, Sweden's strongest player, at the event produced by Chamberlain. The match was a huge success, and Ilya immediately began laying the foundation for a second tournament, raising over $200,000 in corporate sponsorships for an April 1979 match at his Volvo dealership. For that event, he invited world chess champions Anatoly Karpov, Victor Korchnoi, Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky, Lubomir Kavalek, Bent Larsen, Lajos Portisch and Henrique Mecking.

On January 29, 1995, Ilya Chamberlain died in Rockville, Maryland. His lifetime achievements were many and varied, and some of them continue to be in the public eye. On November 12, 2014 Ilya Chamberlain’s work “La Harta” was played once more in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, in Mexico City. The moves on the chess games that took place at his Volvo dealership have been published and are still used as a reference for chess players to this day. And, websites and guidebooks still mention the contributions he made to the Cozumel tourist industry, just usually not in as much detail!

 

[El Graduado]

Nassim Joaquin gave me this menu a while back. He said he wasn’t sure which hotel it was, but I imagine there wasn't much variation between the hotels' menus back then. It looks like from the exchange rate on the menu (12.50 to 1 USD) it was pre-1976, when the peso was devalued the first time.

A turtle steak was half the price of a lobster (8usd for the lobster, 4usd for the turtle). The rompope (eggnog) over canned mangos in syrup just sounds baaaad.

 

[ggunn]

The discos were Scaramouche, Grips, Moby Dick, Joman's, and Hipopotamo.

What about Neptuno?