My Life in a Bar Crawl
Here’s a snapshot of where I lived and where I went. Some of the places are where I went all the time and others are where I wished I could go all the time. The places I would take my friends when they visited.
Unfortunately, I’m so old that we didn’t take pictures of our bars and beers. We’d have to develop those and that cost money. I had to steal some of these pictures from the internet. They’re so bad, I can’t imagine I’ll get sued for it.
Vilseck, Germany – 1992-1993
Metropol, Grafenwohr
Most people start their bar drinking careers when they turn 21. I got to start in high school as I lived in Germany and the drinking age was just being tall enough to look over the bar.
The Metropol was a scuzzy bar just outside the gates of the military post. It was full of young soldiers, the American high school kids, and a few brave Germans that sauntered in to deal with us. It was a clusterfuck. But it was our clusterfuck. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Gainesville, Florida 1993-2000
Purple Porpoise, Gainesville
There was a four year period where I didn’t get to drink in bars again. Luckily, college makes that transition painless. But once you turned 21 at the University of Florida in the nineties, the first place you went was the Purple Porpoise. There was nothing special about it other than it was across the street from campus and it never tried to be anything that it wasn’t. Just cheap beer, wings, and pool in the back at the Lavender Mullet. It was the classic college bar. It’s now lost to urban development.
Orlando, Florida 2000-2001
Fiddlers Green, Winter Park
Irish pubs were the only place in the nineties to get beer besides bud light on draft. And they cared about what they looked like. I only lived in Orlando for a year after college, but I was obsessed with Fiddler’s Green. A real Irish pub in the middle of all the Orlando new construction. And it was here that I figured out that I really enjoyed a good Guinness and that there was nothing wrong with that.
Los Angeles, California 2001-2003
Skybar, Los Angeles
Located at the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Blvd, Skybar is everything you think of when you think of Hollywood. It’s got all the glamour and it’s outdoors surrounding the hotel pool with beautiful views of LA in the valley below. And, of course, crazy expensive drinks. But, if you want to feel a little Hollywood, there’s no better spot. I’m sure there are cooler places now, but back then, there weren’t.
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas 2003-2013
Joe T Garcias, Fort Worth
Joe Ts is more of a restaurant than a bar. But it makes fantastic margaritas and has an enormous outdoor patio to enjoy them. It’s a Mexican Margaritagarten. And it
Tampa, Florida 2013 and counting
Fermented Reality Biergarten, Tampa
It didn’t open until 2018, but it has quickly become my favorite beer bar in Tampa. Located in the middle of Sparkman Wharf, it’s an outdoor biergarten on the water with 30 beers on tap. The beers rotate month to month, but there always 3-5 German beers, 5-10 local beers and the rest are curated from across the country. Plenty of food options in the food stalls in Sparkman Wharf as well.