Tropicana was built in 1939 in the Municipality of Marianao, very close to the Playa Municipo. It is also known as "A Paradise under the Stars", because it was built outdoors in a wooded area taking advantage of the cool of the trees, becoming a cabaret completely different from the traditional ones.

In 1940 he adopted the current name when the choreographer and entertainment director Sergio Orta suggested it, inspired by the homonymous melody of the composer and flutist Alfredo Brito, premiered in that same place.

In that fabulous space, a dreamlike frame, an entrepreneur devised to initially install a kind of night club restaurant for some 300 people, equipped it with games rooms, and turned it into one of the busiest casinos in the continent. It also kept the grove and the tropical environment. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the games rooms were gradually eliminated since they were not consonants with the socialist system.

The symbol of Tropicana is the sculpture of a dancer made by the Cuban artist Rita Longa in 1950 and to a lesser extent, another symbol is the Fountain of the Muses, by the Italian Aldo Gamba, installed since 1952 at the entrance of the legendary cabaret.

Countless Cuban and international stars have performed on the stages of this cabaret. Tropicana was selected among the twenty locations from where the American television consortiums ABC and CNN broadcast the farewell of the 20th century live to the whole world, it has also been declared a National Monument.