Ball & Chain

History

Ball & Chain is a live-music bar and restaurant at 1513 Southwest Eighth Street on Calle Ocho in Little Havana. Its own history says the saloon opened in 1935 and operated under slight name changes, including Himmel’s Ball & Chain in 1949 and the Ball & Chain Tavern in 1953, until the Copa Lounge Tavern took the space in 1958. By 1967 the address was the Futurama furniture store, which lasted into the mid-1990s, and the building then sat vacant. The Barlington Group renovated it and reopened it as Ball & Chain. Miami Herald, citing Esquire in 2026, notes the lore that Billie Holiday sang there and that the room is now run by Bill Fuller, Zack Bush, and Ben Bush of Mad Room Hospitality.