El Patio Nightclub

The chronicle of El Patio is the story of the rise and fall of the most refined nightclub of Mexican bohemia. It all began in the 1930s, when the businessman Vicente Miranda and his wife, Conchita Vélez, ran the restaurant El Retiro, a concept that already combined fine dining with live shows and where figures such as Agustín Lara and Pedro Vargas performed.

Its fate was sealed when Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, stretched thin by his telecommunications projects, sold Miranda a venue called El Patio Andaluz. After a series of alterations, on October 12, 1938, El Patio was formally born at Atenas 9, in the Juárez neighborhood.

Opening night set the standard of opulence that would define the place. Guests enjoyed the “Menú de Reyes” — the same banquet the French president Albert Lebrun had offered the monarchs of England that year — which included lobster medallion and asparagus in chantilly sauce, paired with fine wines and champagne. The room was even scented with an exclusive perfume, and a place setting cost 20 pesos. By 1940 the venue had added an acoustic shell and a cutting-edge retractable revolving platform that allowed two orchestras to alternate for uninterrupted music.

While the world endured the Second World War, Mexico was living its Golden Age of cinema, and El Patio became one of its epicenters, appearing in iconic films with Tin Tan and Luis Aguilar. After Miranda's death in 1951, his young nephew, Mario Vélez, took over and turned the place into an international magnet. Under his management the stage received titans such as Edith Piaf and Judy Garland, while at the tables it was common to catch the eye of Walt Disney, Marilyn Monroe, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo or María Félix.

In the late sixties, facing financial trouble, control passed to Francisco Aguirre, founder of Grupo Radio Centro, who used the power of radio to tie the venue's fate to a young prospect: José José. Four months after his legendary performance of El triste in 1970, the “Príncipe de la Canción” began a golden era there that, along with Juan Gabriel's enormous residencies, secured the venue through the seventies and eighties.

Time, however, forgives nothing. New habits among young people and the arrival of stadium concerts outgrew the capacity of the place, limited to 1,500 people. In 1994, after a Lupita D'Alessio concert, El Patio closed its doors without warning. For months its marquee promised a remodeling and the return of the Príncipe de la Canción that never came. After three decades of neglect, in June 2024, the foundations that held up the most glamorous era of the capital collapsed for good during its demolition.

At number 9 Atenas street there will remain the echo of a building that housed gala nights, legendary performances and the most vibrant pulse of the capital. Those walls, where thousands of people celebrated life, faded little by little into oblivion, leaving behind the memory of what was, without doubt, an unrepeatable era in the nightlife history of Mexico City.

*With information from El País and Excélsior.