Discover the Coca-Cola Museum hidden inside a restaurant in SP

On one side, a counter with sushi, sashimi and hot rolls. On the other, rice, beans, pasta, meat in sauce. The Free Port would have everything to be another kilo of São Paulo, if it weren’t for the environment. Inside is a real Coca-Cola museum.

Whoever observes from the outside the big window and brick house in Santana, in the north of the city, hardly imagines that there is a collection there that for 40 years has gathered objects dedicated to the brand. “We have everything,” says Homero Cesar Rodrigues, the restaurant’s owner, who says he’s already lost count of how many junk there are. “It’s a lot. I don’t want to give a number so I don’t tell a lie”, he justifies over the phone, in a call with Homero Cesar Filho, 40, with whom he runs the business.

About to turn 79 years old, Rodrigues says that he got his first soft drink toast on his honeymoon trip, in 1982. “We were in a restaurant in England. They served a Coke with a different cap, I had never seen it. I thought it was cute and brought the bottle to Brazil. Then the collection began.”

Over time, the wide-mouthed glass container, sealed with an aluminum screw cap, gained the company of paintings, camera, furniture handle, dolls, carts, telephones.

“We also have an umbrella that is in the shape of a bottle when closed”, he says. “But I haven’t seen him for a while, I don’t know where he is. I’ll even look for it.” Items are purchased at thrift stores, antiques fairs, websites, or donated by customers and friends.

Thematic trinkets appear scattered in the six environments of the restaurant, which occupies a labyrinthine property of 600 m².

When passing through the residential-style door, the customer arrives at a large room with red plastic tables, banners that give a festive atmosphere and items from the Minicraques era, those little dolls inspired by players from the Brazilian team that multiplied in 1998. window is decorated with a transparent bottle filled with green and yellow caps. But so far, the brand’s appearances are even discreet.

The buffet is ahead, in another room. Armed with a red tray, the staff serves a variety of hot and cold dishes typical of a restaurant per kilo, which costs R$54.90 during the week and R$59.90 on Saturdays.

Food is weighed at the same counter where dessert and drink are chosen — sodas are kept in a branded refrigerator, of course. There are options for Coca-Cola in cans, PET and KS bottles, as the glass ones are called, which cost R$ 5.50. KS, by the way, are highlighted in this part of the house, where shelves display models made in the country in every year since 1955. They also have the first bottle made in Brazil, from 1942, with 185 ml.

The Homers explain that the dark liquid that fills these packages is, yes, Coca-Cola, but not the original drink. “The soda ends up creating a kind of mold, so we change it from time to time”, says the son.

Instead of eating in the buffet room, you can still explore other spaces. A hallway on the left leads to a hidden room where an old bar lies. The walls are made of stone, the atmosphere resembles that of a pub or a tavern — it is not by chance that the Free Port emerged as a taproom in 2000. There are more objects of the brand there, with bottles from other countries, around 50.

“I’ve been looking for more Brazilian things for a while,” says Rodrigues. “It’s impossible for you to have a collection from all over the world, you’ll end up having just a little bit from each place. Focusing on Brazil, you can have a nicer collection.”

Even more thematic is the environment that is next to the cashier, a wide corridor with high ceilings, built to receive the crew of the soap opera “A Favorita”, by Globo, which was being filmed in that region in 2008. “We renovated the space to receive them and then we started decorating”, says the father. That’s where the most curious things are: there are dolls, carts, a telephone and so on, all with the Coca-Cola logo and colors.

But not everything is exposed in the restaurant. “A lot is in my father’s house,” says the son. Despite not having data, they disclose that they hold the largest collection of the company exposed to the public in Brazil.

Still, the family says it has nothing to do with Coca-Cola — other than the team that fills the fridges from time to time. “It depends more on who is the regional manager”, ponders the son. And they complain about not having been invited to the event that brought the World Cup to the country, sponsored by the company. “They never contacted us.”