Cocktails With Dina by Dina Novarr
Your Slack, WhatsApp, and Teams are pinging. Someone just scheduled a “quick sync” that will absolutely not be quick. Your ability to get out from in front of your laptop has been derailed. Frustrated, you need to disappear for two hours without triggering your laptop’s location services. Put on your OOO message, “Gone to Havana,” and step through the doors at 270 Columbus Avenue, a 1920s era bank that has reinvented itself as a place to rum-inate about all the other parts of your life.
Long Weekend, the newest venture from Future Bars, is designed to make you forget and refresh your bandwidth. The building transforms into a sensory journey through Cuban culture, featuring live music, visual art as it transforms from day to dusk to night, and environmental storytelling through immersive sounds from Havana. All you have to do is ask the bartender for a mojito and sip it.
Even in 2025, we still cannot import Cuban rum to America. A 60-year-old Cold War embargo is chugging along like legacy code nobody wants to update. For decades, it has been smuggled, traded, taxed, banned, worshipped, and fought over. It’s the spirit that has spent its life finding freedom for a reason.
So, how did Beverage Director Jayson Wilde create traditional Havana flavors in San Francisco? He scoured through distribution catalogs, examining over 150 globally-sourced rums, then created nine custom blends that reverse-engineer the taste of authentic Cuban rum. This man built his own replica Cuban rum from scratch because the government said he couldn’t have the real thing. And it works. The reconstructed rum tastes more authentically Cuban than “Havana Club,” another facsimile that’s only legal because it is made in Puerto Rico.
Four stories above the bar, on a rooftop closed to the public, Wilde and Sheehy grow two varieties of mint, one Cuban and one American, because they’re committed to authenticity. Sheehy explains: “Mentha x villosa is the variety of Cuban Mint we grow in our roof garden. It has a more structured texture, and a more savory, mild pepper taste. It is far spicier than its American cousin, but also less ‘minty’. The American Mint we grow is Mentha spicata, known as spearmint. It has a much softer texture, with a mild, fruity, light pepper flavor, and refreshingly minty.”
As you glance at the wall parallel to the mint planter, a 2010 Banksy mural looms above, faded from the San Francisco elements. It’s a reminder you can take a break from your regimen and the regime. You can immerse and disassociate from your phone and enjoy individuality. It’s an escape from everything your job demands. At the Long Weekend, there’s no need to “create value,” “drive engagement,” or “leverage synergies.” The biggest concern is growing the correct mint on a rooftop nobody sees because it makes the drink taste better. Full stop. No KPIs. No growth metrics. When was the last time you did something well for no reason except that it should be done well?
The best part about this bar is that it is wrapped up in an ephemeral concept of “flying you to another destination.” The pastels, the graffiti, and the torched cinnamon sticks will disappear in 9 short months, and Havana will be replaced by a new port of call. Artist Reynerio Tamayo’s work highlighting Cuban rum culture will be auctioned at the end to benefit his children’s art school in Havana. Everything beautiful here has an expiration date. And, as your manager would remind you, you can’t roll over your PTO, so use those days while you can, and keep planning for future trips to refresh and expand your bandwidth.
Long Weekend isn’t just a bar. It’s proof that authenticity takes more work than efficiency, that some things can’t be optimized, and that the best answer to, “Do we have bandwidth for this?” is sometimes, “Who cares; let’s do it anyway.” And I resonate with that message. I too am quietly strategic but never docile. I reroute norms instead of obeying them. I create my own playbook in a world still following old ones. And I help motivate people to come escape with me.
Now silence your phone and join me for another round.
San Francisco-based Dina Novarr enjoys sharing her passion for fine wines, spirits, non-alcoholic craft beverages, and more with others.
2.5 ounces Havana Club Blend Rum
.5 ounce lime juice
8 mint leaves (U.S. or Cuban)
club soda
mint sprig for garnish
Combine first three ingredients in a Collins glass. Press down gently with a muddler or blunt tool and twist to release the mint essential oils. Top with chilled club soda. Garnish with a mint sprig.
Cocktails with Dina
Published on November 6, 2025
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