Whats on Tap

A junkbox that's not so junky

So our resident karaoke king Tod Caviness and his ladyfriend Nikki were out on the town the other night. Well, maybe "out on the town" is a bit over the top. Actually it's a lot over the top. They were grabbing a beer at Kiwi's off of 436 in Altamonte Springs. And although we're talking strip mall bar hopping here, Tod and Nikki were still surprised on how empty the bar was on a Saturday night.

Especially after the discovery Tod made at Kiwi's and shared with the group a couple of days later. Turns out Kiwi's has a digital jukebox that actually has all of the songs to choose from each album it displays!

Now, for those of you lost, there has been a trend for bars in town to be getting rid of their beautiful old jukeboxes and replacing them with those touchscreen types or as Casey calls them "junkboxes." The largest offender of this is Copper Rocket Pub that had one of the best jukeboxes in town.

But the big problem with all of this is just because the junkbox has an album on it, you never get all the songs on that album, only select ones. I don't know if the bar has to pay per song or what, but it's bullshit at the end of the day. That is until Kiwi's decided to give the customer what they want, all the damn songs on an album to choose from.

What a concept: Keep the customer happy. Is it really that hard if your depending on a machine to do it? At least there's one place in town that gets it.

Get a drink named after you!

Peacock Room on Mills Avenue in Orlando will be giving one mack daddy of a prize to the millionth customer that walks through its entrance door this month: a drink named after the customer. According to Peacock's owner Dave Rich, not only will the person get a drink named after them, they'll also have their picture placed on the "award" wall and a nice little bar tab to boot.

They're basing the number on average drink price and annual sales to this point. Since they're still working on this, a specific date has not been announced yet for you to walk in and out of their door until they scream, "You won!!!!" When I find out I'll post it immediately.

My two cents on Bliss

So I'm not pushing this column too hard this week on CityBeat, just because you would be blitzed with Bliss knowledge between Paul's "Inside" piece this week and my column. But I thought if you were interested I would give you a little linky dink to check it out. Paul and I both went the same night (why he's mentioned), so you'll find we're pretty much of the same opinion for the most part.

http://orlandocitybeat.metromix.com/bars-and-clubs/orlent-kelly2007jul20,0,1374172.column?coll=orlnatent-bars-headlines

Have a great weekend guys!

Drunken Monkey gives us the 411

After blogging about the Drunken Monkey the other day, I received an email from co-owner Larry Hardin shortly after, just giving me the skinny on what the "Monkey" may or may not be getting drunk from:

"The monkey's not getting drunk on anything.  We are right next to the Baptist church.  Our original plan was to have beer and wine but this locale became available and was so perfect otherwise, we had to take it... Anyway, Drunken Monkey was named after a dessert (Drunken Monkey ice cream) and the kung fu style (Drunken Monkey Kung Fu... there's a film of that title too), not for any implied imbibing.

We love the folks at Dandelion and actually Julie (one of the owner's) knows all about us and had been very helpful with advice.  We love her and have the same open and mutually supportive attitude about any independent, organic and/or eco-friendly businesses.   We don't compete much.  They are a tea house and we are a coffeehouse.  They are hands down the winning hippies.  We are not worthy.  Believe me, we will be sending them as much business as we can.  We do want those 'spoken word, crunchy, vegan, drum circle-types' but we want them to hit Dandelion too just as much as they do now."

Thanks for the scoop Larry!

Pedicabbers beware

So there's some new competition showing its ride off to the downtown revellers too schnockered to drive themselves home. O-Cartz is the new kid on the block, a stretch golf cart essentially. The new form of public transportation can drive around up to six people including the driver and is working the streets downtown spanning Marks Street to the north, Summerlin Avenue to the east, Division Street to the west and Anderson Street to the south. There are only four on the roads right now but the owners are confident they'll be taking more on. The drivers will take you one-way anywhere in the coverage area for $3. I will say, next to the lymmo, that's one of the better deals in our fledgling young public transportation system.

Drunken Monkey

You have to love the name: Drunken Monkey Coffee Bar. My friend John made me aware of the place this past weekend, when he drove down Bumby in Orlando and saw Conway's BBQ has gone the way of the wind and there was a sign in the window stating as much. Not to say I was completely surprised, everytime you drove by Conway's you'd be lucky if you caught a cat in their dumpster. I went in once, because I felt bad they had no business at the Bumby location. And the food was pretty decent.

As far as the tanked ape's new joint, it opens in September and this is what its Web site has to say:

"Drunken Monkey Coffee Bar was conceived to fill the need for excellent coffee and healthy foods in Orlando.  We offer...

• Freshly roasted espresso/coffee/coffee beans daily.
• Homemade gourmet soups drummed up fresh in our kitchen by Soupcon owner John.
• Yummy muffins, cookies, and pastry items made from scratch.
• Lots of veggie, vegan and organic choices.
• Xylitol-based goodies (sugarfree but good for you! seriously check out xylitol).
• Open mike entertainment.
• Convenient drive thru expresso-based fixes."

I love the line: "Drunken Monkey Coffee Bar was conceived to fill the need for excellent coffee and healthy foods in Orlando." I wonder what the folks at Dandelion Communitea have to say about that, although their focus is tea and not coffee. I would love to see them play it out like the Jets and the Sharks and end up having a tree hugoff.

It could also be the same owners forcing a hippie monopoly. How's that for an oxymoron? Either way, I'm looking into it. No mention of alcohol on the site... hmmm. There better be some damn booze if you got a liquored up monkey as your mascot.

One thing is for sure, the new coffee bar will be yet another destination for many of the spoken word, crunchy, vegan, drum circle-types in this town. In otherwords, this business model will get a crowd no doubt.

Miami heat

And I'm not referring to the basketball team. Good god, it's as hot as hell down there. Sorry it looked like I abandoned you all the past few days, I just got back from a quick vacation I took down there -- business for my fiance Casey and sitting around a pool for me. Actually not that much sitting around the pool, after a chapter and a half of reading my book (approximately 20 min) I burned so bad my chest looked like one of those horrible hypercolor shirts whenever someone pressed their finger on me. I'm an irish gal, what can I say?

The party we went to the night before, sorry, crashed the night before in Miami Beach made up for it. Of course, it was completely by accident. We were meeting my cousin at The Shore Club, a poshy 5-star hotel. Everything in the lobby is draped in white and the ladies' bathroom looks like the white room at Pulse in Orlando, minus the bar. As Casey put it, "I'm officially now out of my element." Many of the parties for the conference he was attending took place in the back of the hotel by the pool. We went all the way to the back and just kinda walked in, no ID check, no wristband check just an open bar with top shelf liquor waiting ahead.

Security is damn lax here we thought, but by the second Tanqueray and tonic we noticed there were bouncers everywhere except the one entrance we stumbled into. Which was lucky because my cousin called a couple minutes later to inform us we were at the wrong party. Same location, just different pool. And cash bar we come to find out. So we bounced back and forth between the two and finally the guards kind of gave up, took down the rope offs and the parties became one. All because of Casey and me. Well maybe not entirely, but toward the end of the evening, looking at what appeared to be a scene from a bad CW show, I did feel a twang of pride.

Or it might had been just my stomach telling me to forget the eighth gin and tonic and head the hell back to our own hotel. Either way, it was good times.