José Felipe de Araújo, in window, the owner of the Bar do Bin Laden, received thirsty customers from Slovenia, Seychelles and Brazil on Tuesday night in Rio de Janeiro.
Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
RIO DE JANEIRO — After a long day trying to set world records, win a medal or just finish a strenuous event, even the world’s top athletes want to unwind.
But with night life options lacking at the futuristic towers of the Olympic Village, many competitors opt for the short stroll to a watering hole with a curious name: the Bar do Bin Laden.
Yes, it’s named after Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda, but not because of any extremist fervor. Instead, it’s a nod to the appearance of the bar’s long-bearded owner, who bears a resemblance to the mastermind of the devastating 2001 attacks on American soil.
“After Sept. 11, everyone starting calling me Bin Laden for obvious reasons,” said the owner, José Felipe de Araújo. “The nickname stuck, so I decided to use it to my advantage.”
Mr. Araújo, 60, a former manual laborer who opened his establishment more than a decade ago, receives thirsty customers from around the globe with a warm welcome, plates of grilled sirloin, pizzas and tall bottles of Antarctica beer served “stupidly cold,” as is the custom in Rio de Janeiro, the first city in South America to host the Olympics.
Mr. Araújo, left, bears a resemblance to Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda.Credit
Left, Dado Galdieri for The New York Times; Right, Associated Press
Curiously, the decidedly unkempt Bar do Bin Laden here in Rio’s distant suburbs, where dozens of patrons gather until past midnight during the Games, isn’t the only saloon in Brazil named for the Saudi who was hunted down and killed in Pakistan in 2011.
Another Bar do Bin Laden attracts a heavily pierced clientele in downtown São Paulo. The Bin Laden Espetinhos Bar serves up skewers of meat in Belo Horizonte. Deep in the backlands of Pernambuco State in the northeast, in the city of Salgueiro, a Bin Laden bar serves delicacies like torresmo, freshly fried pork crackling.
Though reviled in much of the West, the Bin Laden name generally does not carry the same stigma in Brazil, a country that has been spared the large-scale terrorist attacks that have horrified many other parts of the world. A sense of rebellion and defiance might also play into the proliferation of the Bin Laden phenomenon.
One of Brazil’s most popular funk singers is named – you guessed it – MC Bin Laden.
For his part, Mr. Araújo, clad informally in denim shorts and sandals, proudly said that his clients came from around the world, reflecting a broad range of nationalities and political and religious beliefs. Officially, his establishment is called Pizzeria Specialle, but asking for directions using that name elicits empty stares in the neighborhood where he lives with his wife and five children.
“This is the Bar do Bin Laden,” he proclaimed as he grilled steaks for his signature dish, a mountain of food on a plate that includes rice, beans, pasta and meat. It goes for about $4.40, a fraction of the cost of eating at one of more upscale restaurants near the Olympic venues. One evening this week, South African, Slovenian, Korean and Ukrainian visitors nursed beers near the billiards tables, alongside construction workers scarfing down Mr. Araújo’s food.
“The Olympic Village gets boring and the food is somewhat, well, monotonous,” said Carlos Vizcaino Sánchez, 48, a Cuban émigré who coaches track and field athletes in the Seychelles, the 115-island country in the Indian Ocean.
“I never thought I’d find Bin Laden in Rio, but here he is,” said Mr. Sánchez as he sipped a beer. “I’m glad to have encountered this piece of the real Brazil.”
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