by Miguel Bravo | Nov 28, 2011 | Fort Lauderdale
by K47
It’s that time of year again, and FTL residents will be coming out in masses to kick-off the holiday season. On Tuesday November 29th, our famous boulevard will be closed down to traffic and filled with Christmas Spirit. Here are our tips for making the best of it:
- Walk, bike, or teleport to this event because parking anywhere near Las Olas will be a bitch.
- Wear close-toed shoes. Trust us on this one. There will be more strollers than you have ever seen in your life and they WILL run you over.
- Dress up your dog (or cat). You don’t want him/her to feel left out and naked. Animals who attend Christmas on Las Olas are known for their keen Christmas fashion sense.
- Bring cash. Various vendors will have food and drink carts/tables set-up but, not credit card machines. ATM’s can be hard to come by in the crowd.
- Brush up on your Tanya Harding skills. No, not clubbing people in the knee….ice skating! Skate Las Olas, an artificial ice rink, is up and running in the lawn next to the Riverside Hotel. Rent some skates for $6 and get working on that triple axel.
- Pack a thermos of your favorite holiday themed beverage. A recent favorite of ours is Mulled Wine:
- 1 bottle of red wine (really any will do)
- ¼ cup Brandy
- 1 package of cider spice (or a combination of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger)
- Simmer these ingredients on the stove-top for 10-20 minutes and enjoy.
Christmas On Las Olas
On Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale
Between Southeast 6th Avenue and Southeast 10th Avenue
Around 5 PM – 10 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
by Miguel Bravo | Nov 23, 2011 | Music
Say what you will about this Saturday’s 2nd annual Dancegiving Festival, a tri-venue smorgasbord of some of the world’s top DJs held at Revolution Live, but some FTLC staffers are pretty excited about this year’s festivities. With the cancellation of Identity Festival for a bogus hurricane, this event couldn’t come at a better time. After this weekend’s party, we’ll have nearly 4 months to recover until Miami gets invaded by WMC and Ultra in mid-March. Upping the ante, this year’s version of the fest expands to 5 stages total, which includes 2 new outdoor stages.
We’d be kidding ourselves if we said we weren’t looking forward the most to catching the bigger national headliners (hello MSTRKRFT), but it’s worth noting that there are 35 Florida DJs on the lineup. For FTLC blogging purposes we’re only concerned with the DJs with 954, 754, 305, 786, & 561 area codes. We found 23, but I’m sure we missed a few because A) half the names are hard to Google (looking at you Elements), and B) a handful of potentially local DJs decided that they’d rather rep a fake city (“Schwagville”, really?). That being said, this is what I was able to round up (all my favorites are in the first 7, after that it’s random order). Check the festival schedule set times.
Afrobeta – Play House (Brass Knuckles Remix)
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/10430454″]
Phoenix – Fences (GTA Bootleg)
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/15877395″]
Renegades Of Funk – Dancegiving Promo Mix
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/23644982″]
Jay Z & Kanye West – NI**AS In Paris (Caligula Remix)
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/22168665″]
Juan Basshead – Live from Get Low WMC ’11
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/12419364″]
Arias – Bass Invaders
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/13863415″]
Modest Mouse – Float On (Landis Remix)
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/21216192″]
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by Miguel Bravo | Nov 18, 2011 | Local Business
by Fat Hand
I’d like to apologize for the FTLC’s blogging hiatus: we were stuck in traffic. But like the Beatles in the USSR, we’re back.
This past Wednesday was opening night for Tap 42, the new beer bar south of downtown Fort Lauderdale (located on S. Andrews Avenue two blocks north of 17th Street). I, along with what seemed like everybody else in Fort Lauderdale between the ages of 25-40, wanted to be first to check it out. It was crowded on opening night my friends. Actually, I didn’t arrive until 9:30 and people said it was way more crowded earlier in the evening, which hardly seems possible.
As the name suggests, Tap 42 has 42 beers on tap. Plus it has another 103 bottled choices. But if that does not satisfy you, there are also 50 different bourbons to enjoy. One interesting thing I noted about Tap 42’s menu is that it does not list prices of the beers or bourbons. For beer that’s probably not a big deal, as most are in the $5-$6 dollar range that one would expect (although a bartender told me a few are priced as high as $11), but if you are ordering bourbon, choose wisely. A friend of mine was all excited about his $17 glass of the outstanding Pappy Van Winkle, which is great as long as you know what you are ordering. Just saying, be careful.
Tap 42 has what appears to be a good menu with a variety of appetizers, a few salads, some tacos, and a promising list of burgers. I enjoyed the mole chicken tacos and I heard raves about the burgers and sweet potato fries.
Tap 42 took over the spot of the old Brownie’s, which hosted legends such as Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald way back in the day. Sadly I never visited Brownie’s before it closed, but from what I have heard it had gone downhill a bit, and was not the sparkling swinging spot it had been in its heyday. But the new place looks wonderful, from the reclaimed parquet wall running the length of the room, to the copper colored background behind the taps (which on closer inspection is a bunch of pennies glued to the wall), to the concrete flooring installed by local green-friendly hardware and construction company Eco Simplista. The décor is classy and the bar feels very comfortable.
Outside is a huge patio with plenty of tables and space to enjoy the fresh air of Andrews Ave., plus tons of free parking. No bands played while I was on scene, but supposedly Tap 42 will have live music.
The bar has about 5 flat-screens but this is not a sports bar. This is a place to drink good beer and great bourbon and to hunker down with your friends to plan your shady real estate deals or your PIP scams or whatever it is you are doing in this shitty economy. This is a bar to drunkenly describe your next great conquest, and to even more drunkenly find yourself in a good old-timey duel. Indeed, the parking lot outside of Tap 42 is sure to become the official dueling spot of Fort Lauderdale, which is ok because Broward General is only a block away.
The FTLC raises its collective glass to the new and exciting Tap 42.
Some more photos, after the jump…
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by Miguel Bravo | Sep 30, 2011 | Fort Lauderdale
Times are tough in the universe of South Florida sports: the Dolphins arecurrently in last place, the Marlins just finished their season in last place, the Panthers are in the midst of the longest streak of not making the playoffs in NHL history (10 years, but we are optimistic about the upcoming season), and the Hurricanes…well, their problems are well documented; no need to get into them here. Plus everyone involved with the NBA, from the commissioner to the owners to the players union, is conspiring to cancel the Heat’s entire season just because they don’t like Lebron.
But there is one local franchise that you can support without condition: our local minor league soccer team, the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. The Strikers play in the first round of the NASL playoffs at Lockhart Stadium, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against a team of jerks from Edmonton. If the Strikers win Saturday’s game, they will advance to the second round and will have a home and home series with either Carolina or Puerto Rico.
Besides the fact that the Strikers is the only of the aforementioned sports teams that plays in this great city of ours, other reasons to come to Saturday’s game are that tickets are cheap (GA for $10), there’s a food truck rally at the tailgate before the game, there are limited occasions where it’s cool to wear red and yellow together, and when you are drinking and singing there is nothing quite as funny as a sad Edmontonian.
The Strikers played great soccer in the second half of the season and are surely favored in Saturday’s games, and must be one of the favorites to win the league championship. I have not seen the Vegas odds yet, but our team looks good.
So come to Lockhart on Saturday, stand next to your Lauderdale brothers and sisters, and help these young men defend the Fort.
Stream this song, made by some Striker die hards.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/24191884″]
by Miguel Bravo | Sep 29, 2011 | Local Business, News
Stopped into the Riverside Market (that wonderful gem of a spot just southwest of downtown) for a sandwich and stopped short upon seeing this sign on the entrance:
No drinking beer or wine on the premises? Preposterous! That is the best place to drink beer and wine. Sure, you can take it to go, but you can do that anywhere. Give me some atmosphere. Give me some craft brew on a barstool next to a table full of cops. Give me a drunken evening wine-tasting with accompanying appetizers. This is bullshit.
The guy working the deli counter said they were having licensing issues but that they are getting it sorted out. Well Riverside Market, not to sound ungrateful, but why don’t you go ahead and sort that out. You have a beer and wine dinner scheduled in three weeks that I would really like to attend.
Email fathand@ftlcollective.com if there is anything I can do to help. I know absolutely nothing about liquor licensing.
