NEW YORK: The owner of the most popular watering hole in Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic city has named his joint after Osama bin Laden, according to a story in The New York Times.

“It’s named after Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda, but not because of any extremist fervour. Instead, it’s a nod to the appearance of the bar’s long-bearded owner who bears a resemblance to the mastermind of the Sept 2001 attacks,” NYT said in its Wednesday issue.

“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.”

The report said Mr Araújo, 60, a former manual labourer who opened his establishment more than a decade ago, receives customers from around the globe with plates of grilled sirloin, pizzas and tall bottles of Antarctica beer served “stupidly cold”, as is the custom in Rio de Janeiro.

The unkempt Bar do Bin Laden in Rio’s distant suburbs, where customers gather until past midnight during the Olympic Games, isn’t the only saloon in Brazil named after the Al Qaeda founder.

Another joint by the same name has built up a steady clientele in São Paulo, NYT said.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2016