Comments (1) Best Fort Lauderdale Neighborhood Bar - 2009
Alligator Alley
1321 E. Commercial Blvd.
Oakland Park, FL
954-771-2220
Alligator Alley's booze selection is nonexistent. But you won't need shots, because the Alley's beer selection is kickin'.
There are two brews from Unibroue, those incomparable Canadian brewers. There are Caribbean ales. Key West ales. Triple-fermented craft beers. And the bar food is prepared with an attention to detail and inventive flair that's hard to find at other watering holes. Fried oyster poboys are better than much of the competition in New Orleans, and mind-bending spicy gumbo is cooked to secret specifications in ten-gallon batches.
Yet it's not the beer nor the food nor even the Alley's reliably great jazz and rock music that make it so spectacular. It's the place itself. Go in, drink, and eat and you'll meet some of the coolest heads around. Old session musicians who'll riff on their glory days with Buddy Guy, science fiction writers, painters, psychedelic visionaries — all just sitting around, shooting the shit, treating the place like a second home. For lots of us, it is.
UPDATE: This location is now closed.
