Cu Ju to Sail in New Direction, Get New Name, Renovation Starts August 18

Avast me hearties! Splice the mainbrace! Other pirate and rum-related stereotypical phrases!

Cu Ju, the pirate bar-cum-sports bar-cum-Moroccan restaurant that won Outstanding Sports Bar and Outstanding Bar Personality of the Year for founder Badr Benjelloun at the Beijinger 2014 Reader Bar & Club Awards will close in its current incarnation after service on August 17, to renovate and take a new direction, Benjelloun told the Beijinger Friday.

"When we set out to do Cu Ju, a little over two years ago, that saying was reflecting everything we wanted: We anchored in the hutongs and survived a landlord storm. We made sure the cork was always loose and had our fair share of spiced rums. We even made our own," he said, via email. "Well, the compass is still true but it's now pointing to a different direction ... and the privateer must follow the compass."

The pirate ship will pull into harbor with a celebration of International Rum Day on August 16, which will feature a bottle of Black Tot rum, bottled for the Royal Navy's final distribution of rum on July 31, 1970, and has been mellowing ever since. The final Casablanca night will bring the curtain down on August 17.

Benjelloun said that a name change is also coming, but would indicate only that clues to the new moniker lie in his statements above. Cork Ju?

Regardless, we won't ever need to ask Captain Jack Sparrow's eternal question: why is the rum always gone? Benjelloun assures us there will still be rum, and that renovations will be completed in time for the beginning of the NFL season on the morning of September 5.

For more information, visit Cu Ju's website.

Photo: Cu Ju