Audio By Carbonatix
Come January 1, no more taco Tuesdays — or anything else — at Treasure Trove. The beloved dive bar off A1A will shutter by year’s end. A doubling of his $4,000-a-month rent as of January 1 by building owner Sophia Enterprises is too steep for the business to maintain.
After 17 years running his bar, owner Jeff Rudd says the closure is all bitter, no sweet. “I can barely rub two nickels together, let alone pay that kind of money,” he told us this past summer.
The announcement of the closure prompted polarized reactions among readers. In the comment thread from this summer, one reader sympathized with the building owners.
“A $2.7 million condo would rent for more than $8K per month.
Landlords can’t be expected to support people who can’t get anyone to
come in unless they charge 1985 prices.”
Further down the thread, former critic John Linn responded:
The Treasure Trove is one of those time-honored dives that will
inevitably go away, that give this place we live in the charm and
character that it deserves. When it’s all plastic club-a-raunts, maybe
then we’ll mourn the loss of something that was unique. It’s why people
who value creativity and spirit all eventually move away from this
place, so that it can be populated more and more by folks who care about
how pretty dishes upon which their $30 plates of food are being served.
“Carlos” beat his horse:
Culture has value if it’s good culture. When the culture is tattooed,
chain-smoking biker dudes who still live their lives the same way as
they did when they were 22 at 50, then it’s not worth preserving.
You
can claim that Las Olas doesn’t have the charm that it once did, but
the only place left, the Floridian, is the worst food and the worst
service on the street. It’s not charming; it’s an eyesore and a waste of
real estate.
The beach area needs some decent places to fit the
new demographics of the city. We want tourists coming here and we want
them to spend money. The $40 dinners generate more tips for workers,
more tax revenue for the city and more jobs for people who live here.
You don’t build an economy by propping up some guy who has owned a bar
for 20 years and doesn’t have 2 nickels to rub together, just so you can
save $2 on a taco once in a while.
I’m with Linn. The demise of Treasure Trove is a travesty. Just the other night, a friend who’s an accomplished scientist — not a tattooed chain smoker, though who cares if she were — mentioned how Rudd was her first friend when she moved to town and knew no one. He’s one of the rare locals who runs a place that offers a community for locals, be it Lauderdale lawyers, tattooed bikers, strippers off work, WASPY country clubbers, or journalists from Sun-Sentinel and New Times. From what I gather, the Trove is the watering whole for all walks. Unless I’m missing places after going out every night for the past four months, I’d say in this town, it’s a rarity.
Let the comments begin.
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