So, I have a secret. Sometimes I like to go to a club. By club I mean swanky light-up bars, black lights and pounding techno music. Now do not get me wrong, I am not a huge fan of them, I am not itching every weekend to put on my gold chain and have a night at the Roxbury, but it does occupy a niche in the broad spectrum of things I like to do that involves alcohol. Like a retard I am attracted to pretty flashing things and being half deaf pounding techno music is one of the few music I can enjoy. I just think they are neat. Like a bar out of ’Blade Runner’ or something.
Sure they attract douche bags, but what does not these days.
However, most clubs of this type are down in Downtown Orlando, and frankly going down there and getting liquored up and then having to drive back really sucks. If I am going to drag myself downtown and pay five bucks for parking, I usually go to a place I am more familiar with. Plus most people I go downtown with wont go into those kinds of clubs with me.
That is why I was surprised when I got this friends add for this place:
Whoah, neat! I was wondering what they were doing with that place. Way back when I first moved to Sanford there was a bar here that I had dubbed ’Scary Redneck Bar’, I popped in a few times. It was sort of what ’Moe’s would be like if it was a real place. A few listless rednecks moped at the bar swilling on cheap beer. Every time I popped in there, the same ones were there as if sitting there and listlessly swilling was their job. A while later ’The Emerald Hen’ and ’The West End’ opened up, and I never went back. It closed down a while later.
Over the past couple of years I saw a lot of work being put into the building. I really had no idea what it was. To be honest I thought someone was building a steakhouse. Turns out that a family plumbing business around the corner (I used them before to rout some tree roots out of my sewer) owned the building and the son decided to turn it into a personal project to express his creative side. It looks like he put a remarkable amount of work into it.
It looks pretty neat and I am going to have to check it out. I’ll post a review when I do. I love living in an area that has bars I can walk to and stumble home from.
2026 Update
Tonight I dial back 18 years to catch Ed ogling black lights and a Myspace page for a martini bar.
Ah, 2008: when your social calendar hinged on a Myspace friend add, parking cost a five-dollar bill handed to a guy in a booth, and you could casually announce that you'd be driving home liquored up because taxis were for quitters. The whole ecosystem has been renovated. Myspace is a haunted attic; bars now court you through Instagram and TikTok, and the algorithm already knows you'll say yes before you do. Parking is an app with a countdown timer and a convenience fee that exists purely to annoy you. And the drunk-driving confession Ed tosses off like a garnish—we now pretend to be responsible and summon a ride-share car that smells faintly of someone else's life choices. The club itself? It wouldn't be a black-light techno pit anymore. It would be a 'curated social experience' with a velvet rope, a menu of small plates, and a QR code that asks for a tip before you've even ordered. Ed's core truth survives, though: walking home drunk still beats navigating a parking garage.
“2008 Ed, did you ever get around to reviewing the Sanford Martini Bar, or did the black lights and pounding techno scramble your brain so completely that you just ended up adding the owner's plumbing business as a friend on Myspace?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2008 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, that's a fair question, and the honest answer is I still haven't posted the review yet. I keep meaning to, but every time I think about it I get distracted by something shiny, or a cat throws up, or I remember I have to finish staining the boat. I did actually drag myself over there one night, and I'm pretty sure the black lights made my cheap white T-shirt glow like a radioactive ghost, which was neat, but then I got to talking to some guy about drain snakes and tree roots, and I think he was the owner's brother. I don't think I added the plumbing business on MySpace, but I might have added their promotional fish tank. My brain is a little scrambled either way. Review's coming. Maybe. Egads, I love living close enough to stumble home.
