Even as Florida’s economy slowly begins to reopen, the damning impact of coronavirus shutdowns on local businesses is beginning to show. Few places is this more obvious than in the iconic tourist strip mall Crossroads of Lake Buena Vista. Sitting just off of WDW property, the strip plaza was built in 1988 as part of a Disney-led expansion of the area that also saw the development of the College Program housing complex Vista Way. The Read More...
Ronnie’s restaurant in Orlando closed in 1995 after a 39-year-run. Did you hear the one about the $1.2 million bowl of soup? No, it wasn’t made of incredibly rare shark fin and served in a jeweled bowl. … It came from a reader who moved here a few years ago and must still have a taste for cabbage soup. In 1960 Flossie Gluckman, a local Jewish activist, drove to Jones High School to recruit a few black students Read More...
The city’s gateway has been awaiting a rebirth of businesses with the proposed construction of a new shopping center at the former Seminole Plaza site. But next month, the northeast corner of U.S. Highway 17-92 and State Road 436 will suffer another death. Service Merchandise will close its Casselberry store in mid-May. The Nashville company decided not to renew its lease for the 125,000-square-foot building. It moved into the plaza in 1985. Service Merchandise is one of the final Read More...
The Fun Machine Arcade – Orlando
Uber Eats and Grub Hub in the 90s
Club Nowhere – Orlando
The domes of the building once known as the Booby Trap pointed skyward for more than 40 years. But while the original owner had some last-minute thoughts of salvaging part of the building — two parts of it, anyway — a bulldozer finally put an end to the party, knocking down the former adult club in Winter Park on Wednesday. Purchased by the city last month, the former club — also known over the years Read More...
95.3 Party became a success in the market with its mix of dance and hip-hop music.[1] By 2004, the station had shifted to a hip-hop-driven direction, and rebranded as rhythmic contemporary Power 95.3, restoring the format to Orlando since the flip of WJHM (now WQMP) to urban contemporary in the 1990s (WJHM returned to Rhythmic in 2012, but changed to CHR in 2014).
(Swing girl & cocktail servers) – Mako’s, a Church Street in Orlando bar whose scantily clad waitresses have been featured on MTV.
The best, can smell it as soon as you come around the corner on I-4 in Orlando
ORLANDO — Jennifer Borrego planned to party. Instead, she and almost 100 others ended up crying in their nickel beer May 5, the night the new owners of Church Street Station capped Nickel Beer Night, a 25-year-old Wednesday evening beer swilling tradition. “It was just so out of the blue,” says Borrego, huddling in the weekly Nickel Beer Night group hug with other 5-cent fans. “A lot of people are very upset.” In fact, Read More...
El Torito Mexican Restaurant – Orlando
Casa Gallardo Mexican Restaurant – Orlando
I’m longing for the Blue Plate Special at Morrison’s Cafeteria – I’m having liver and onions with their yellow rice, black eye peas and jalapeño corn bread, with a combination salad and sweet potato pie – I never order a drink just water and lemon — What are you having? Morrison’s Cafeterias was a chain of cafeteria-style restaurants, located in the Southeastern United States with a concentration of locations in Georgia and Florida. Generally found in Read More...
Pointe Orlando Toy Store – Orlando
Taco Tico on Lee Road in Orlando The BEST – far superior to Taco Bell. We had one in Winter Garden and in Pine Hills (where I worked for three weeks summer 1983, and in spite of my 17-year-old metabolism I still gained ten pounds) – there was also one on 50 near Fashion Square I think. The Taco Burger and The Sancho RULED!
The Purple Porpoise – Maitland – Seafood Restaurant
What is happening with Orlando bars lately? First, Parliament House – perennial winner of Best Gay Bar in our Best of Orlando readers poll – files for bankruptcy (chapter 11, so they’ll try to reorganize and keep things afloat, but it’s still sad to see), then we learn that Bar-BQ Bar, Eye Spy and Sky 60 (which we just named Best Place to Dance in the Rain in our Best of Orlando 2014 issue) will Read More...
ICON was a multi leveled Orlando club with 3 bars.
1988 According to a 1988 story in Orlando Weekly, DJ Kimball Collins discovers an acid-house night happening at the old Beacham Theater in Orlando and before long, he morphs it into AAHZ, the legendary house-music dance party that attracts people from all over Florida and turns Orlando into an epicenter for club culture. 1993 The Dust Brothers (later known as the Chemical Brothers) headline a massive rave at the Edge Nightclub in downtown Orlando, giving birth to an Read More...
Times have changed since teen-agers sock-hopped to the sounds of Bill Haley and the Comets. Poodle skirts have given way to minis, duck tails have become moussed spikes, and the high school gym, well . . . the gym is obsolete. Visage — a flashy teen nightclub that makes streamer-bedecked basketball hoops look almost primitive — is the type of place for the ’80s. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, hundreds of teens file through Read More...
Whether you are a fan of classic suspense filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock, you love a good Halloween movie, or you’re an annual visitor to the Halloween Horror Nights house at Universal Orlando Resort, then you surely know of the film Psycho. Hitchcock’s Psycho has been paving the way for both horror films as well as boys with mommy issues since 1960. When people think about Universal’s film lots, typically it is Universal Studios Hollywood that comes Read More...
On Nov. 1, the Parliament House held its “Last Dance on OBT.” Days before, however, the new owners of the property had already filled out the paperwork to have the 1962 motel property demolished. For the LGBTQ community, the closure of the Parliament House was a huge loss. The roadside motel became a gay resort in 1975 providing a place for people to be themselves and meet one another. During the AIDS crisis in Read More...
Pleasure Island, we hardly knew ye. By now, I’m certain you’ve all heard the news: On September 27, 2008, Pleasure Island will cease to exist as we know it today. Walt Disney World Resort announced on June 27 that it will be completely re-imagining the Downtown Disney area, with new shopping, dining and other experiences, including a completely re-imagined Pleasure Island. Not quite 20 years old, Pleasure Island will close its six remaining nightclubs: Adventurer’s Read More...
