HIDDEN BAR UNDER STAIRS CODE

“I see bars in my head and I create them,” says Chelley, a former competitive weightlifter.Īn LP player spins scratchy tunes from Al Jolson and later songs from Glenn Miller, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. He likes the clandestine aesthetic and 1920s-era design, and he built much of the Sidecar himself, from the burnt pine bar (he scorched the wood with a kitchen torch) to a tin ceiling. “You don’t want to make it too easy to find, but you also don’t want to make it too hard,” Clayton Chelley says.Ĭlayton Chelley, who once owned four bars in his native New Zealand and now runs four Vino Wine Bars in Fort Lauderdale and Key West, says he always has wanted to run a speakeasy.

The Sidecar Speakeasy will be open three nights a week, Thursday through Saturday, starting at 6 p.m. He says the outside entry system will include a sticker with a phone number for people to call if they haven’t retrieved the weekly passcode from social media. He says the Apothecary, open every night except Monday, has been performing well, bringing in nearly as much revenue as Pizzacraft.Ĭlayton Chelley showed me the outside entrance, a door hidden next to a storefront that looks like a bookshop. “We’re going for the anti-crowd crowd, the anti-Second Street crowd,” Falsetto says.

HIDDEN BAR UNDER STAIRS CODE

With leather furnishings, a rules list posted online that bans drinks such as Red Bull with vodka, Jagermeister and Fireball shots, and a dress code that prohibits shorts and baseball caps, Falsetto says the Apothecary is trying to appeal to people who want a civilized drink after dinner or a show at the nearby Broward Center for the Performing Arts. “We wanted to create something more elevated than the usual bar experience in Himmarshee, but also something that’s approachable,” Falsetto says. It has no outside sign, but it has a website ( apothecar圓30.com) and Instagram account ( Coin-holders still receive perks such as invitations to high-end whiskey tastings.

(A restaurant within a restaurant - this is where my head starts to explode).Ī “hidden” speakeasy bar lives inside the Brass Tap gastropub in Fort Lauderdale.

Chef Brad Kilgore recently opened Kaido restaurant in Miami with a separate-menu, reservations-only dining room dubbed Ama. Monkitail restaurant at the Diplomat Resort in Hollywood has a somewhat hidden karaoke lounge that unsuspecting diners might miss. My frustration also applies to secret hideouts and insider dens. Call me old-fashioned, or just old and grumpy, but I really like when an establishment informs me of all its offerings with a menu, blackboard or human being who recites specials. When I dined at Loch Bar in Boca Raton earlier this year, I forgot to ask about “the legend of the hoof,” which supposedly would have brought a surprise. Major chains such as Wawa and Starbucks routinely offer secret menu items, although I don’t know how one is supposed to learn of them. When I first dined at upscale JWB Prime Steak and Seafood in the Margaritaville Resort in Hollywood, sushi wasn’t on the menu and I had no idea it was offered until I saw some pretty platters waltz past. Secret menu items and other gimmicks have been irksome in the course of my restaurant travels.

Hidden bar under stairs