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Sandinista is an award winning cocktail bar and tapas restaurant in Leeds. With live music gigs every wednesday and sunday and DJs playing thursday - saturday, we are one of Leeds' foremost late night venues and the only bar in the city open till 3am 7 days a week!

Si Ord opened Sandinista! in October 2002, inspired by his love of music, food and drink and Central American Culture. With an endearingly shabby appeal and a loosely Latin American feel, the doors opened with the ethos 'nuestra casa es tu casa' - our home is your home - with the idea to create a bar for ‘everyone’ in the city’s northern quarter. A bar in the true cantina style, food is served all day from 3pm sunday - wednesday and from midday thursday - saturday, with an extensive range of tapas, larger dishes and lighter snacks available. Almost half of our tapas menu is Gluten-free and there is a good range of vegetarian options. You will find the perfect accompaniment to whatever takes your fancy from our recently re-vamped wine list. In addition we serve an excellent range of cocktails, an impressive array of rums and other spirits and a fine selection of draught and speciality bottled beers.

The bar has a revolutionary theme with its name inspired by the political movement in Nicaragua from the ‘80s and the subsequent eclectic album by The Clash of the same name which musically was a major inspiration with its eclectic blend of reggae, funk, jazz, pop, punk and rap. Our play list soon incorporated these genres and many more... a 'no dance'policy that is not always that strict.... The Clash's humanist / socialist / internationalist approach paralleled the Nicaraguan government's and in spite of debt of $1.6 billion and 1 in 5 homeless,within 6 months of coming to power, nearly 20% of the 3 million population were taught to read.....

A revolution in Nicaragua...there's no interference from America? Those Washington bullets want Castro dead...join the Havana Club...Bacardi was never an option...Coca Cola was banned for its invidious practices...Nastro joined the rebels and the rum collection grew...and grew...as did our hangovers.

We adapted, we innovated...occasionally we even plain pilfered. There are so many sides to Sandinista! It probably has more faces than Howard Marks and more lives than Keith Richards. Passion is not a fashion...
This is ours...

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click here to visit our sister venue smokestack