Miami Beach Nightlife

Right on 9th and Ocean Drive,
is the swinging and bouncy Mango's Cafe.

Something similar to a strip joint,
but with no sheding of their,
barely there synthetic leopard skin outfits..

The staff gets on the bar,
and starts shaking their thing,
while you sip your Mojito down.

Don't choke on one of their tropical dishes.

Some of these latin babies
really know how to shake!

Mangos is open 7 days a week
from 10 am - 4 am.

Even when you are a South Beach resident,
keeping up with the
happenings of the nightlife
can be an ever shifting challenge.

Night clubs open and close,
changing ownerships and names,
and then having different parties and themes
for diverse nights of the weeks.

A lot of editorials and web-sites
are also outdated in their information
having a difficult time keeping up
with the times.

The Miami Herald's 'Street',
does a pretty good job in keeping up to date,
while the Miami New Times
often has outdated info in it.

If you are into celebrity filled
hip-hop parties,
Opium Garden;
www.opiummiami.com
has been known
to house the best hip-hop party
in the nation on Sunday night's Ritual party.

Another good source
is getting the word
right out of the horses mouth,
the promoters.

A rising hip-hop promoter
is Michael Madd, who claims,

"I DON'T THROW PARTIES,
I MAKE MUSIC & CREATE VIBES...."

hosts parties at venues such as:

Thursday night at Crobar;
Friday night at Rumi's;
Saturday night at Pearl's;
Sunday night at Mynt
and other parties in NYC.

E-mail for more info:

mrmadd@michaelmadd.com

Stay tuned for more on South Beach's night life to come.

Dress Code: Cool Dude!

The lobby and outside pool bars at the Delano Hotel are very popular places to hang out, have a drink and people watch. During high season in Miami, which is basically wintertime everywhere else, the hotel is packed, especially the outdoor area. The setting includes poolside cabanas which can be rented by day or night, poolside beds which are great for large groups to congregate, drinks in hand, for some serious people watching and the bar area which also contains a small dance floor.

My friends and I like this place, especially when the humidity has eased off enough to make sitting outside a pleasant experience. Its a mixture of locals and tourists here, with the northeastern visitors occupying the majority from December until about April. But, much like Miami, you'll find people from all over the world and everyone seems to be having a good time. Best of all, there is no cover charge.

Dress Code: Dress appropriately. Its S. Beach so the upscale all-black ensemble generally works best. That being said, there really is no dress code and they will pretty much let anyone, unless they decide not to. That sentence probably doesn't make much sense, but keep in mind this is South Beach and it makes up its own rules.

My suggestion to visitors is to avoid wearing any of the following: shorts, sandals and those flowered shirts which are so popular with tourists. If you're a hotel guest, you'll get away with it. If not, there's a chance they will stop you at the entrance.

Tobacco Road is a huge bar, located at Miami downtown. It has the typical American Bar atmosphere, with live music, TV sets, and people drinking and having fun all night long. Just remember not to pay attention to the gambling machine at the end of the bar. You could easily spend the night playing card games, while laughing out laud with the jokes of the Puerto Rican folks ;-)

Dress Code: Dressy or casual; It doesn’t matter.

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After dinner across the street at the Playwright Irish Pub, we decided to stick to the Irish theme and continue our evening at Waxy O'Connor's Irish Pub. When we arrived the bar was pretty busy and smoky, but we found two seats at the bar. The entertainment for the evening was karaoke, which wasn't horrible, but certainly wasn't American Idol. We had a few beers here, before returning to our hotel smelling like stale cigarettes.

Waxy's has a nice interior, but it really turns into the neighborhood dive, with all the nasty smoke and drunks sleeping at the bar.

Waxy's has two locations around Miami, one in San Antonio, and a fourth in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

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On New Years Eve, before Midnight, we wanted to find some low-key entertainment like live music to keep us busy while we waited for fireworks on the beach. After dinner on Washington Ave, we wandered up to Espanola Way and wandered past the crowd to the bar at Hosteria Romana. We ordered two drinks--an Italian Moretti beer ($7) and a Mojito ($16). When the giant mojito came out it was the talk of the bar, particularly the two-foot long piece of sugar cane sticking out of the foot-tall glass. Next thing you knew, every lady and every European guy at the bar had one in their hand, though us manly US guys stuck with beer.

We stayed here about an hour and a half nursing our drinks and listening to live music before heading out to the beach around 11:45.

The biggest negative? How about a mandatory 18% gratuity just to get your own drinks at the bar? That's highway robbery.

*sigh* my favorite topic; Nightclubs.
Okay so depending on how exclusive/trendy/sexy you and your people are..it might be SUPER easy or SUPER difficult to get into some of these spots.. BUT I'm going to give you a little mixture of both cool and some normal spots..have fun! and less is more! lol. IF YOU'RE EVER IN NY AND NEED SOME SPOTS, ASK AWAY!

Nikki Beach Miami-(Penrod's Entertainment Complex) 1 Ocean Dr
Opium Garden- 136 Collins Ave
Mansion-(saturday)1235 Washington Ave
Mynt-1921 Collins Ave
Delano's Rose Bar- 1685 Collins Avenue
Gansevoort South Hotel-(thursdays 11pm) 2399 Collins Avenue
Set-(fridays) 320 Lincoln Road
SkyBar Miami Beach at the Shore Club-(saturday) 1901 Collins Avenue
Shore Club-(sunday) 1901 Collins Avenue
Cameo-1445 Washington Ave

Dress Code: Tropical/Sexy for women.
Casual Trendy for men.
White linens always works in any warm environment.

This argentinian restaurant offers big size portions of food for like $12. It may take you 3 days to finish it. They have entertainment that starts like at 11pm and it is mainly tango and salsa.

Dress Code: casual