Bottle Cap Valhalla: The Bottle Cap Inn

Unsealed: Bottle Cap Art | The Woolseys | The Patent Drawings | How To | The Race QuestionThe Blockbuster
The Galleries: Masterworks | Troops | SignedFlashersOther ShapesMine | Bottle Cap Inn | Two Monuments

Joe Wiser’s Bottle Cap Inn in Miami was featured in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, but more importantly it was a triumph of an obsessive personal vision. Fortunately, many interior views were preserved in a series of postcards and press photos.

The bar was created in the 1930s by Joe Wiser, said to be a disabled World War I veteran. He choose to decorate with the most available ornamentation, covering every surface, and many objects, with bottle caps.

The bar went through a series of owners after Wiser, but was still functioning at least into the 1990s.


Bottle Cap Inn, Miami
The old Bottle Cap Inn building in 2008. It burned down July 4, 2012, victim of fireworks. Find more about the Bottle Cap Inn (and lots of other old Miami places) at Don Boyd’s site. (Photo by Dario Mercado)

Unsealed: Bottle Cap Art | The Woolseys | The Patent Drawings | The Race QuestionThe Blockbuster
The Galleries: Masterworks | Troops | SignedFlashersOther ShapesMine | Bottle Cap Inn | Two Monuments

6 comments

  1. Memories… Reading the posts and remembering trying to count how many different bottle caps were on the walls and posts, and everywhere! And then dad would drag me out. Been many places in this land and had many great pizzas. But the BCI had a class of pizza all it’s own… on thru my time at M-DJC. All, all, seasoned with memories.

  2. I grew up down the street on NW 13th Ave in the 50’s and ’60’s. Loved going there with my parents. Best spaghetti ever. As a kid I discovered condoms there in the men’s restroom– they had a machine hanging from the wall with a picture of a beautiful blonde that dispensed them for a quarter, I think. I thought they were candy and asked my dad could we buy some and he gently escorted me out of the restroom, telling me it would ruin my dessert.

  3. Hadn’t visited your site for a while. Always a joy. I’m grateful for your energy and commitment.

  4. Wow! Parents went there in 40s 50s and 60s.My mother told me a story about how in a jealous rage she pulled some bartender across the counter and beat her up.She was only 5 feet 4!
    The road ended on 7 th ave not far.It was the boondocks back then.

  5. I loved their pizza. I lived within walking distance of the bottle cap inn. As a family we’d either go to Bottle Cap Inn or Bar-B-Q Barn less than 1/2 mile east on 119th street. After BCI burned down I rescued a few bottle caps from the debris. The east part of the building is still there and is now a church.

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