Whats on Tap

Familiar 'Faces'

Rumor has it that Faces, the former lesbian bar off of Edgewater Drive, will be returning to Central Florida. The new space is located in Forest City, in the Publix Gateway Shopping Center off of state road 434.

The original bar closed shortly after the owner passed away and although many fought to try to keep the legendary club open it eventually shut its doors for good a little while back.

Well, it seems someone believed in the bar enough to reopen those doors, well not exactly the original doors but you get the point. Question is how well a lesbian bar will do in a predominantly surburban location, I mean it's a Publix shopping center. The original patrons will surely come out in droves when it has its grand opening, let's just see if they keep coming after. Either way, with the gay bars dropping like flies in this town, its nice to see a familiar face come back into the fold. Even if it may look completely different.

When I find out an opening date I'll let you know.

No hero here

I was at a Maker's Mark Ambassador function with John, our Cheap Eats, Bar Bites man about town a couple of nights ago. He digs the stuff, personally, I don't think I had tried it before. There were a lot of cigar smoking, yup yups walking around but the head of the whole kit and kaboodle, Bill Samuels Jr. was a pretty down to earth sort who seemed to be sneaking some swigs from his own product. He was a funny guy who signed my hand-dipped red waxed glass that they gave away at the function for free. Would have liked to have seen the Maker's Mark drinks for free along with some food but you can't win them all. Supposedly they had a 60-second buffet before we showed up, so being fashionably late didn't really do much for me that evening.

As for the Maker's Mark? It's bourbon, all I know is at the end of my "Old Fashioned" there was an orange seed I swallowed by accident that would have displayed the product in my belly to the ambassadors in a whole new light. But I'm a professional, I took control of the situation.

And after one $9 drink that John spotted for me and the group that was with us, I took off to the Guitar Hero Challenge at Peacock Room. Yeah, I was on a mission that night. I still suck at Guitar Hero, but what sucked even more was the sad turnout for the event. I've seen you people with this game, and it's a level of sad dedication I feel Sally Struthers should be doing infomercials about.

So where were you that night? There were maybe six or seven of us back there, and a case of PBR for the winner, but the competition never really took off. It was just people playing, there wasn't really enough people for a competition.

  But you can redeem yourself, not only is Peacock hosting this event every other Wednesday, but tonight there is a big Guitar Hero competition at The Lodge. The Family Values Guitar Hero Competition takes place from 10 p.m. - midnight tonight and whoever is named the victor gets a chance to hang out with Korn backstage on Sunday's Family Value Tour at the TD Waterhouse Centre and play Guitar Hero head to head against Jonathan Davis himself. Not a bad prize, now maybe some of your lazy asses will drop the video game, get off the couch and head out to the Lodge tonight to pick up the video game again.

More Irish pub news

So, I just got word that the Harp & Celt will be opening its doors Monday in downtown Orlando. This is the Irish pub/seafood restaurant that took the space Scruffy Murphy's originally claimed to be moving into after its original downtown location closed.

Here's what I found on their Web site:

"The Crawfish Company Of Central Florida, Inc. and the Cottage Irish Pubs, Inc. have teamed up to form the new corporation: “Cajun Paddy, Inc." owned and operated by Kathy and James Mulvaney and Lisa and Rick Boyd.

The Cajun Paddy, Inc. will be mixing American and Irish heritage in a new and stimulating package opening the “Harp & Celt Restaurant and Irish Pub”, set for opening early August 2007 in the Historic District of downtown Orlando located at 25 South Magnolia Street. The Celt Irish Pub will open it's doors for the first time on Monday, August 13, 2007 at 11:00 AM. The Harp Restaurant will open it's doors for the first time on Friday, August 17 for dinner at 5:30 PM.

The Harp will be an upscale fine dining restaurant serving award winning dishes for the lunch and dinner crowd. Cody Patterson, our Le Cordon Bleu Chef is a graduate of the Orlando Culinary Institute, bringing some of the finest recipes and culinary delights to the palates of Central Florida. Fresh Fish from the Florida and the Louisiana coasts teamed up with our Angus Beef steaks will be the core ingredient of downtown Orlando’s newest and only dedicated seafood restaurant.

The Celt, next door to the Harp, will be a traditional Irish Pub serving traditional Irish beers and imports. The beer selection will be large, satisfying the tastes and whims of any beer fanatic. Included will be a full liquor bar and the finest wines available. Serving lunch and dinner will be an extensive menu of award winning Irish foods. Come and enjoy traditional and modern Irish music with music seisiun's being organized on a monthly basis."

I'll check it out next week and let you know what I think.

Scruffy Murphy's is back

I have great news for those of you who were regulars at the old Scruffy Murphy's in downtown Orlando: it's back. Not in downtown Orlando though, the new location is in College Park at 2625 Edgewater Drive that formerly housed Gio's and Adair's before that. My friend Rick was walking by with his wife when he noticed a sign in the door window. He asked the carpenter working some questions but the carpenter was rather hush hush. He had a dog named Beamish which is a pretty freaking cool name though. I called the Georgia location and the bartender confirmed that Scruffy's was reopening in Orlando. I don't know about a date or time yet, but as soon as I do I'll let you know.

Sloth

I had a ex-boyfriend call me that once, a special guy that one was. But I'm not here to take a trip down memory lane with you today, I'm here to tell you about one hell of a tasty martini I had the pleasure of imbibing last night at Tryst Martini Bar called "Sloth." Tryst was formerly Ybor's Martini Bar in downtown Orlando, and the martinis are still on the mark even if the bar is different. A mixture of Absolut Vanilla, amaretto, cream, chocolate syrup and grenadine had me wanting more, though the $8 happy hour price had my wallet saying enough already!

It was yummy!

I'm number 4!!!

Five jobs that will satisfy your wild streak -- but not necessarily your pocket books. Looky there, I'm number four.

On a lighter note

Whoo hoo, Club Paris has closed its doors for good!

On a once again sad note, the space off of Church Street will be opening again on Aug. 31 as Dolce Nightclub. Curious on how this reincarnation fares...

Sun sets on Southern Nights

Even though, I haven't been to the club regularly in years, I felt a pang of sadness when I heard Southern Nights off of Bumby Avenue in Orlando closed it doors for good this past Wednesday night. Supposedly due to unpaid back taxes the club just couldn't catch up. Even with some successful nights taking place at the club. In fact, recently The Rendezvous Lounge was hosting local music acts, which means another local music venue lost along with a legendary club.

A few years back, Southern's cheap drinks and drag shows kept my group of friends and me returning every weekend. The majority of us are straight, but we always felt welcome once inside the gay and lesbian club. It's a shame Orlando (especially the gay/lesbian/bi communities) has lost another much loved establishment, Southern will be missed.

Bags!

  Okay, so I might be stepping at bit on the Control Freak's toes here, but the subject of this today's blog was located at a bar so I'm going to absolve myself of any guilt for that reason.

From the makers of Golden Tee and Silver Strike Bowling comes.... BAGS!

Wait, Bags? Yes, Bags folks, like the red-headed stepchild of the Golden and Silver ones, this game is basically about throwing bean bags at a box with a hole in it. You get the bag in you win like a 1000 points or something.

Casey spotted this gem at Debbie's Bar last weekend and seriously thought this was one of their test models for when Target Toss Pro started making games, the cheap model you can get at a steal.

Turns out not so much, this is their newest game that came out last month. The idea is ridiculous, however, we still played it. Not a ton of skill needed, throwing the bag despite wind speed changes was about it and how I mastered that was really due to a lot of random guessing. Bags doesn't offer a lot of direction, but it was a way to kill a couple of bucks and save Casey and I from actually talking to each other, God forbid!

Will I play it again? Damn skippy. It was kind of fun and it doesn't take much to entertain this one as long as there is a beer in my hand.