La Factoría Is the Winner of Our 2023 Experience in Hospitality Award

Celebrating its tenth anniversary in April 2023, San Juan’s La Factoría is taken into account to be the singular bar that launched Puerto Rico’s cocktail scene.

As we speak, it’s an iconic six-floor area, with a distinct idea on each ground. 

“It was this little nook bar in Outdated San Juan [called Hijos del Borinquen],” says associate/founder Leslie Cofresi. “Our associate Pablo Rodriguez took over the area and contacted me. I used to be a younger child again then…We thought we’d make cocktails for nerdy bartenders. However we opened in the future, and by no means closed our doorways.”

In its early days, La Factoría was the one cocktail bar on the town, amid a sea of discotheques and sports activities bars. “It grew to become an trade hub,” says Cofresi. “We have been calling our associates to assist us out on their days off. It grew to become a cocktail laboratory for an entire era… It was one thing new. It unfold by the city first, after which the remainder of Puerto Rico.”

Maybe a very powerful growth in La Factoría’s evolution got here “the primary yr we purchased the constructing,” says Cofresi.

That transfer turned “an unassuming little nook bar, with a door you would possibly or won’t see” into an enormous area that spanned six flooring and half a block. “Each room grew to become a bar. Each area grew to become an area for one thing to occur, and it was what it’s at this time: six completely different flooring, with six completely different ambiances and rooms.” La Factoría is actually a maze that may lead from an intimate, candle-lit room for eight to a large area with a salsa band and 100 individuals enjoying.

The evolution additionally has spanned each drinks and hospitality.

By way of the drinks, La Factoría seems to classics “with somewhat twist to offer a shock,” says Cofresi. Nonetheless, when the bar opened, many substances, like sure liqueurs or modifiers, have been tough to supply. However that didn’t cease La Factoría.

“We targeted on basic cocktails, however by our time and our situations,” says bar supervisor Carlos Irizarry. Some drinks could have been impressed by these seen in London or New York Metropolis, however he notes that they’ve additionally been “getting in contact with the flavors of Puerto Rico and our personal identification.” Ample rum is commonly a part of the combination, and native contemporary fruit typically stands in for hard-to-get liqueurs.

As we speak, lots of these boot-strapped drinks are classics.

For instance, the bar’s best-seller is the Lavender Mule, a Moscow Mule riff made with vodka, a lavender infusion, and contemporary ginger tea. “It’s super-refreshing,” says Cofresi. “We promote 1000’s of {that a} month.” Different robust sellers embody a Rum Outdated Common and a Soursop Milk Punch.

Though La Factoría stays a high-volume bar, it nonetheless finesses hospitality—a facet that units it aside. In spite of everything, in a large six-floor bar, what does hospitality imply?

“It means having conversations,” explains Cofresi. “Not simply expediting drinks, and that’s it. It offers us a possibility to get to know the visitor, and for them to get to know us, so we will suggest higher drinks and provides higher expertise.”

“Hospitality is all we have now,” says Irizarry. “We’re a small island, a small market. We made it to the highest of the cocktail sport due to hospitality… Puerto Ricans, we take delight in somebody coming to the island and displaying them a very good time. Cocktail developments occur. However the hospitality, the expertise, that’s what individuals actually go to a bar for.”

After a decade in operation, that idea continues to be handed down from one bartender to a different. “You possibly can study cocktails, however you possibly can’t study hospitality by the web,” says Irizarry. “It’s human. It’s a commerce we cross down by work, by a workers.”

For Cofresi, the most important shock has been the bar’s longevity. He nonetheless remembers shopping for the constructing that will turn into so core to La Factoría’s identification, paid off over a number of years. “Each greenback we had went into shopping for this constructing,” he says. “I nonetheless bear in mind the day we paid it off: one thing switched in my thoughts. We have been already well-known. However I assumed, this can be a completely completely different ballgame.”

As a result of they now personal the constructing, they’ll assume long run—for much longer time period.

“We’ll be right here in 10 years, and doubtless 50,” says Cofresi. “We need to turn into an iconic place that will likely be there without end.”