Alfredo Climaco, owner of the new Latin American bar Tropicale, died of complications related to the coronavirus. Climaco had just opened Tropicale, its first brick and mortar bar, last year. He was 32 years old.
Climaco was born and raised in Puebla, Mexico, where he developed a love for bartending and serving. In a conversation in August, he remembered drinking leaked pineapple piña coladas as a teenager, who became one of his signature drinks as a bar owner and bartender. He started working in a nightclub at 17, where he learned the basics of the bartender. “I fell in love with certain aspects of the service industry,” he said in August. “I like how rewarding it is to make people feel happy.”
He moved to the United States in 2010, hoping to someday have his own business. He started studying business at Portland Community College and eventually started making non-alcoholic piña coladas, served with pineapples, at outdoor events like the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival. The success of his pop-ups motivated him to open Tropicale with restaurateur Matt Lynch in the summer of 2020.
The bar, in the Ocean building on NE Glisan, quickly became an access point. People were attracted by Climaco’s heat and its vibrant drinks, from margaritas inspired by Pueblan dishes to cold drinks served in blenders. Tables dotted around the outdoor courtyard were crowded on weekend nights, and occasionally people danced on the patio stones outside the bar. Climaco started working on a take-out cocktail menu in December, looking forward to the opportunity to hire some of its employees back. “I’m not trying to make a profit now, I’m just trying to balance the accounts,” he said in December. “In the freeze, it really hurt my heart just to tell people, ‘Okay, you can’t work.'”
For those who knew him, Climaco was considered sociable, incredibly hardworking and with a good heart. Her family and co-workers organized a GoFundMe to cover both the funeral and medical costs; the excess funds will go to the Portland Market, which supported Climaco when he started his business. Tropicale will be closed today and probably for the rest of the week, while family and co-workers suffer.
• In memory of Alfredo Climaco [GFM]
• There is a new place to drink pineapple piña coladas without cavity [EPDX]
• For some Portland bar owners, take-out cocktail legislation seems too small, too late [EPDX]