Tres Cuernos - Old San Juan
Welcome to the famous and acclaimed restaurant and bar "Los 3 Cuernos" also know as "The 3 Horns" located in the Old San Juan City.
Los 3 Cuernos is known as the birthplace and the house where the original flavored "Chichaitos" where born.
• OUR HISTORY:
Los Tres Cuernos originally was not conceived as a bar, it was actually a local arts & crafts gallery promoting island crafts operated by my parents Nikaulys Soto and José Félix Cruz back in 1994. Starting out in the "La Co**ha" Hotel for four years and they moved up on Ashford avenue where they stayed operating with great success for 5 years but destiny kept pushing us futher and we ended in Old San Juan on San Francisco st., practically the entrance to the old town. The local economy and the state side recession reduced sales considerably.
This is were I come in, I had graduate high school and was a music major in a local college. At the end of 2009 I proposed to my folks a simple idea. I asked them to sub rent to me the first room of the locale so I could set up a small bat to attract local college student and turist to patronize the store. Seeing as we were situated in the island's busiest turist town, I wanted to make the visitors feel as a "local" as possible and aside of all the fine dinning" spots in the old city. Homemade creole food at affordable prices including beers and some drinks as well. All this just so turist would take a gander at the gallery and one thing would promote the other. To top it all off, our house specialty would be the "chichaíto". For the benefit of those who don't know what a "chichaíto" is, simply translated it means a "quickie" if you will, this one of the most typical drinks that you will find in P.R. It consist of a mixture of local rum and anisette, usually served in a shot glass at room temperature. I had a friend of mine help with the set up of the bar section of the business and we dubbed it "Los Tres Cuernos" which translates to "The Three Horns". What does the name mean, you ask? At a very young age being introduced to the world of Puertorican folk art and crafts by my parents, I've always liked the horned paper mache or coconut husk devil masks, which we cal "vejigantes", masks that we use during our carnival in Ponce and Loiza Aldea's Feast of St. James the Apostle.
So i figured why not name the gallery/bar "Los Tres Cuernos" (The Three Horns) in reference to our traditional masks.
Funny how life is, you start out with something on your mind and it can go awry in an instant. Turist were coming in the store but so were the locals. They were surprised to see a place in Old San Juan that had such good prices and "chichaíto" in the old town to top it off. After few months, one day a traveling couple asked us for a piña colada and my mother quickly told her "we don't have piña colada but we have a "chichacolada" I looked at her and thought to myself what is this woman offering these people. So the couple looked at each other and said, why not. Within minutes my mother went to the kitchen and came back with a cup full of a frozen mango chichacolada. The couple loved it, but in general we weren't in high demand for frozen drinks, but it did spark my mother's brain into adding fruit flavors into the "chichaíto" shots. Being a smoothie's and fresh fruit nut my mother started making different fruit concoctions, all using fresh fruits. From there on we were a big hit with the new "chichaíto" concept. Our reputation was islandwide and everyone was talking and checking out "Los Tres Cuernos". The drink has had such an impact, that only the others pubs try to imitate us but even rum companies have exploited our concept to promote their own products.
Come and enjoy our friendly ambience and have a "chichaíto" for a change.
