My favorite tavern in Miami is Tobacco Road. It's been open since the early 1900s, and holds the city's first liquor license. I discovered it in 1983, when I was a senior in college. My friends and I would go there to listen to a group called the Fat Chance Blues Band, which changed its name to Iko Iko, and is probably the most famous local band in South Florida.
The Road caters to a business lunch crowd during the day, and my partner and I eat there a few times per week.
Yesterday, the place was packed. It turned out that to celebrate their 96th anniversary, the Road was offering 96 cent burgers for lunch. We sat at the bar, and ate two of them. They were delicious.
Jack the bartender, a guy about my age but 150 lbs heavier, has been there forever. He told us that when the Miami Vice movie was beong made, Colin Farrell made the Road his second home.
Jack tells a great tale, and kept us entertained for quite awhile with tales of Colin Farrell's sexual liasons, some even in "Doc's Closet," a supply room named after an ancient black fellow who worked at the Road for years.
Turns out that after the actor left town, he asked for a bar stool to be sent back to Ireland, where it sits in his pub there. Ah, the connections --a barstool from my favorite tavern in Miami gets Guinness spilled on it in Ireland.
It occurred to me that the perfect job for me would be bartender or host at a friendly tavern. I enjoy few things as much as good conversation, and the hearing and telling of stories.
MAybe someday...
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