Cleveland Street Walkabout – Clearwater
WOW !! Did we have fun during our Downtown Clearwater Cleveland Street Walkabout back on Wednesday 4/11 @ 6-9PM !!
We had another great event turnout with 26 members & guests in attendance, along with a few dignitaries from the Clearwater City Government.
Soooo many people to thank, but tops on the list are the Amazing Ms. Lina Teixeira lina@linateixeira.com of the Downtown Merchants Association who coordinated all the arrangements; And the indispensable and Awesome Camille Hebting for leading and narrating our tour and allowing me to take the evening off to enjoy the walkabout as a ‘normal’. These two ladies are pillars in the community as it relates to downtown, whose tireless efforts aid in the promotion of Cleveland Street and the beach region as a whole…. THANK-YOU both for your service and dedication to our destination!
Next I wish to thank our Clearwater City Officials for taking time out from their busy schedules to welcome us and provide us with some insights on the future development of the downtown Coachman Park Waterfront as part of their Imagine Clearwater concept. Thank you Councilman Dr. Robert (Bob) Cundiff and newly-elected Councilman Mr. David Allbritton for being present and addressing us; we were very fortunate to have such forward-thinking elected officials be accessible and engage in conversation with us! Thank you to Community Redevelopment Agency (C.R.A.) Director Amanda Thompson (congratulations on your nuptials!!) for giving us your vision of Imagine Clearwater, good luck moving forward on the monumental task ahead of you! And thanks to my dear ole friend, Downtown Mgr. Anne Fogerty-France, it’s always a pleasure to see you out & about… please permit me to plug your next Cleveland Street Blast Friday Event on Friday 5/25 featuring my 2 favorite bands, the Black Honkeys & Greg Billings Band… WOW, Double-Trouble!!
So we all met up inside the Second Century Studios located on the ground floor of the Waters Edge Tower opposite the Capitol Theatre where all sorts of crazy artwork, but more importantly classic pre-war photos of Cleveland Street and artist renderings of the future Imagine Clearwater were on display that served as a nice backdrop for our officials to reference in their conversations to us on Imagine Clearwater. Thank-you to Tony Starova of Tony’s Pizza for all the tasty pizza pies we devoured and Thank-you to the adorable & sweet Kara Lynn for providing some healthier treats from her Kitchen on Cleveland that included her signature gluten-free Artisan Bread, Black Truffle Mushroom Bruschetta, Sweet Potato Humice and her Dairy-free Artichoke Dip…. my waistline thanks you!
From there we marched up Cleveland Street from the 400 Block to the 600 Block to visit the Vector Arcade, 625 Cleveland St., What a retro cool place! A game room with over a dozen old-school pinball and video games that serves all kinds of local beers and Stella and some wines – sorry little kids, this is a BIG Kids hangout! Owners Michael Burke & Lauren Patrick, along with friend Bobbi Douthitt, welcomed us and gifted us drinks and Free Play for at least 1/2hr!! I saw Jane Rodriguez master Ms. Pac Man, Ron MacDougall – AKA Pinball Wizzard – flippin’ the flippers, and Rafael zapping Galatica aliens! All were intently focused on their games except me, I drained 5 gutter balls and that was it. Some great Thai food was catered from ChiangMai Thai Restaurant located next door to the ‘Cap Theatre’ that included Crab Rangoon, Egg Rolls and Summer Rolls ….. khap kuhn khap (Thai for thank-you)! Drop Mike an email to let him know you had fun feeling like a kid again! MNBurke@Hotmail.com
We turned around and next visited our hostess, Lina Teixeira’s Pour Yours Wine Bar, who had just put the finishing touches, windexed the windows and swept the floors just moments before we were the Very First Customers to visit!! WOW is this place hip! Lina has a bunch of interactive computer tablets scattered around the space that contain all the wines offered along with descriptions, histories, vineyard info and the like, to make the whole scene fun and approachable and less intimidating, especially for the novice wine neophytes (myself included) who haven’t a clue on what to order. Congratulations to raffle winner Wendy Barmore who was the first person ever to sample from the automated dispenser where we had all of our fingers crossed that the system would operate …. YES It Works!! Some of the wines available from the dispensers were humorously named after some of our local celebrities to add to the fun feel. Thank you to Sully the Somelier (did I spell that right?) who guided our palates in the right direction and helped explain some of what we were tasting – what a fun guy!
Food was catered by Chef Leo Caicedo of next door’s Fondito de Leo Puerto Rican Restaurant (remember we visited there last year), who is also a major sponsor of Lina’s Wine Bar, and featured his special tasty apps like Leo’s Tampanada, Mahi Tacos, Bruschetta, Surfside Tomatoes and Island Hummice. Lina offers a Build Your Own Platter menu from out of the kitchen next door. The space has a lot of different comfortable, eclectic seating areas including outside sidewalk seating and also doubles as an Art Gallery, with some of Lina’s own personal crazy creations on display (and For Sale!), and the place turns into a late-night party palace with a DJ spinning discs from an elevated booth and flashing the strobe lights for a cool dance vibe. Congratulations Lina and Best Wishes for Great Success!! And Thank-you for the little goodie bags that contained a Pour Yours VIP Card!
Lastly we terminated our walkabout at The Clearsky-On-Cleveland Café where General Mgr. and good friend of mine, Scott Szalay, along with his assistant mgrs. Nick The BIG Guy Christakos, Joe Clancy and Chef Bobby, all took excellent care of us as always. Sorry to those BACA folks who couldn’t stick around, we ran a little late having so much fun along the way, but you missed a lot of good things! Wow, wasn’t that the tenderest Grilled Octopus ever!! Also loved the Calamari, SW Nachos and the delicious Korean BBQ Ribs… my favorite …. I downed about 5 of those babies! Thanks to our servers Rachel and Kate who stayed late and kept the drinks flowing – you ladies were GREAT! And Thank-you Scott for putting together a very nice gift bag that contained a bunch of discount coupons… $10 Off All Clearsky-branded restaurants, BOGO 50% Off, 15% Off Breakfast, and most generously, a $25 Gift Card! If anybody likes to party on Mondays, Clearsky on Cleveland offers SIN Mondays (Service Industry Night) from 9PM…. where you can party w/ DJ Jay and get 25% off your bill, with the largest group each week winning a $50 Gift Card – tell your work friends!! All Clearsky Café locations… Beach, Downtown & Dunedin… seem to have a winning formula for success between their great food & drink offerings and thoroughly efficient & courteous staff … Thank you Clearsky Group owner Dan Shouvlin for being a great friend to me and your hospitality & generosity to our concierge association – You Rock!
Thanks again Lina & Camille for letting me have the night off to enjoy the fruits of your labor and not having to bore our folks with my babble; you are both tremendous individuals and I can’t wait for our next journey down Cleveland Street, making it our 4th Annual Walkabout !!