Ybor City Nightlife

gaspar's grotto is one a many bars and night clubs on 7th ave. in ybor city. gaspar's is famous for it's rum selection. most of the night clubs on 7th ave/ cater to a young late night crowd while gaspar's gets a mixture of tourists and locals. a fun place to have a drink in ybor city.

Dress Code: casual

Normally, a place called 'Flirt' would totally make me wretch. I mean, usually that translates to snotty meat market. Not this place, though. It was more like parties at New College (my former school and the one *true* love of my life), where everyone was just dancing to have a good time. I mean, there were definitely some people there who were trying to be impressive, but I not necessarily in a gross way. It was more like how that kids who play double dutch would try to impress each other with really fancy double-dutching, only instead of jumping rope, they're shaking ass. Anwyay, I don't care what anyone says - ghetto dancing is fun!
There's two layers to Flirt - the top floor seemed to play a little bit more top-40s music and the like, where as the bottom floor was more ghetto superstar.
If you drink, try and get the boy bartender . . . everyone says the girl bartenders mix a really weak drink.
Also, this place hates Rhonda Storms as much as I do and has formed a campaign to stop her. How many clubs do you know that do things like that?

Dress Code: There's no dress code at Flirt. I wore a strapless party dress and my converse. I saw people in jeans and t-shirts, people all swanked up, etc.

The Castle is a mostly goth / punk / metal / industrial club in the middle of Ybor City. The cover is usually pretty cheap (free if you get their early enough), and the booze isn't that much, either.
It's called The Castle because of the building's shape . . . like a castle. There's also this bar in a little annex away from the dance floor that has a moat in it - - like it's made out of river rocks and water trickles through it. I dunno why, but I've always found that kind of neat.
The Castle is not my favorite place on earth to go, but it definitely provides some interesting people-watching.

Dress Code: I once saw a girl here wearing nothing but rainbow-coloured band-aids on her nipples and a tu-tu. Seriously, that was all she had on! Most girls here look like a cross between Punky Brewster and Bettie Page. (Who, oddly, I've met.) All the boys here seem to be vying to see who can look most like that dude from The Crow or Robert Smith from the Cure (either old school skinny or new school chunky). I always wear my normal person clothes, so I don't think there's a dress code.

If you are looking to just juice your liver, 7th Avenue is probably your best bet. There's lots of little bars for you to drink it up at. Be careful, though. They used to close traffic on 7th for the weekends, but not anymore. Also, the curbs in Ybor are like eight feet high, and I saw a drunk lady really clock her head on one during the Gasparilla Night Parade. Ah, lack of judgement . . . .