11/11/2011 Update – Travelogue Edition

Not too much to discuss on the Quad Cities bar front with this update – nothing new opened, no new closings, didn’t hit any on my What’s Left list, which remains at 17.  Really, the only news I’ve got is that ‘Now Hiring’ signs have appeared in the windows of Rubikon, indicating they do still plan on opening.

That’s not to say I haven’t been busy.  I spent a weekend around Sioux City, where we hit a couple places, then spent 5 days in Key West, where I was able to rack up 21 bars.  These include (in chronological order) Sun Sun Pool Bar (at our hotel, the Casa Marina), Cowboy Bill’s, Salsa Loca, Willie T’s, Margaritaville, The Bull, The Smallest Bar, Hog’s Breath Saloon, Overboard Bar & Grill, Schooners Wharf, Conch Republic, Sloppy Joe’s, Joe’s Tap Room, Jack Flats, Captain Tony’s, The Green Parrot, Tattoos & Scars Saloon, Lazy Gecko, Whistle Bar, Smokin’ Tuna Saloon, and The Chart Room.  Along the way, I learned a few fun bar facts:

The Chart Room – This was the first place in Key West that Jimmy Buffet played.  One of the bartenders, Phil Clark, is whom the song Pirate Looks At Forty is written about.  The wooden bar rail has several holes drilled in it with small brass name plates below them.  Those that are plugged hold the some of the ashes of regulars, including Mel Fisher, who spent 18 years searching for the Atocha shipwreck; there are two still unplugged, but reserved (by the way, he found the sunken vessel, and came away with about 450 million).

Captain Tony’s – in the mid 1930s, this was the original Sloppy Joe’s, where Hemingway went to get his drink on.  When the landlord raised the rent by a dollar a month, the owner and the regulars (around closing time) moved everything around the corner to its current location, and was open at 6:00 am.  The original bar has added on to on both ends.  The east side, where they now hawk their caps and shirts, has a tree still growing through the floor that the city wouldn’t let them cut down, as it was the original hanging tree in Key West;  the west side, where the pool tables are, sits over where they buried the executionees.  When they were excavating for the addition, they encountered a lot of the skeletons.  Most they just put back, but one they still keep behind the bar. 


So, the list has stalled at 414 – first post I’ve done with no (local) additions.  Vacation is over, back to work.    

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