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Best Margarita

Canyon Southwest Cafe

For almost 20 years now, the margarita has been the afterwork drink of choice. Snowy cold, almost flavorless, giant-sized, and packed with enough clear tequila to power an outboard motor, it's a cocktail to blow away that acrid 9-to-5 pall. When the eagle flies on Friday, it's solace in a glass. But, hell, for all the gustatory pleasure it provides, you might as well inject it into your arm. Canyon gives you some of the kick of the pedestrian version with a dash of flavor and a trace of the exotic. The restaurant's house specialty, the prickly-pear margarita, is made with good Hornitos tequila. It has a pink blush and a faint, tropical-fruit afterflavor that'll have you groping for comparisons. It tastes like, um -- a cross between a banana and a mango? No, that's not it. Whatever it is, it's tasty and, well, different. Let's call it subtle. The Canyon even delivers a feel for the Southwest. After your second or third prickly, you may look around at the restaurant's faux adobe walls and rancho ceiling beams and swear you hear coyotes howling out there somewhere. The prickly costs $8, $7 during happy hour.

Best Piano Bar

Hugh Jorgan's

Delray Beach's Atlantic Avenue has the charm, the class, the refinement, and the panache that ties in nicely with its "All-American City" award. But tucked away behind the galleries and quaint eateries is a little place with a dirty name. Hugh Jorgan's Piano Bar invites you to bend over for an injection of rowdy energy. The intimate setting puts spectators impossibly close to the stage, where the Jorgan brothers perform on dueling pianos and take requests from the audience. And God help you if you're caught not participating. As punishment, you may have to donate your bra (to add to the ever-growing collection hanging from the ceiling) or you'll be dragged on-stage, berated, then given a free drink for being such a good sport. It's the American way.

Best Sports Bar

Bru's Room

Readers Choice: Bru's Room Sports Grill

Named for owner Bob Brudzinski (who some may remember as Miami Dolphin No. 59 from 1981 to 1990), Bru's Room is what you expect out of a sports bar. Everything about this place is touched with the spirit of competition, from the games on all the TVs to the trash-talking at the bar between teams involved in heated electronic trivia matches. Though several locations have now sprung up, we still love the dear-old Pompano location, particularly for the Gentleman Jack Tuesdays, featuring your favorite bourbon for $3. Unlike some other sports bars, which jack up prices during major events, Bru's Room includes specials on big game days -- the NCAA finals featured the old standby, five-for-$10 buckets of domestic beer. Use those suds to wash down some of the best wings in town and you've got yourself a true sports-bar experience.

Best Rock Club

The Culture Room

Photo by Monica McGivern
Any South Florida live-music club not saturated with sticky, sucky cover bands automatically gets bumped ahead in line. And at the very front of that line, muscling past the chrome-domed bouncer manning the velvet rope gauntlet, is the Culture Room. Yeah, the Culture Room's competition became a tad jealous of its supremacy and the loyalty showed it by local fans and rock bands alike -- and waged a tepid little turf war that went absolutely nowhere. The Room survived, emerging from the chaos better than ever: A redesigned bar setup gives it a newly spacious feel, and the place continues to pack 'em in, night after night, week after week, year after year -- just the way we like it.

Best Venue for National Acts

Pompano Beach Amphitheatre

The folks who live in close proximity to the centrally located, easy-to-reach Pompano Beach Amphitheatre may not appreciate our naming it the best place to see a concert. They may even wish it would go away. But we love this place more and more each time we visit, mainly because an outdoor venue that can be used any day of the year is something the rest of the nation's concertgoers can only dream about. So maybe it makes us feel special. The size is perfect -- about 2,500 seats -- and you don't have to wonder about the sound and vision, 'cause they're both perfect. Plus, our trustworthy independent promoters seem to grab some pretty choice shows, like Oasis; Soundtrack of Our Lives; String Cheese Incident; and Zwan, ex-Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan's new band. Talk of expanding the amphitheater has dwindled of late -- no doubt music to the ears of its neighbors.

Best Gay Bar

Hamburger Mary's

CandaceWest.com
>Neither strictly gay nor strictly a bar, newcomer Hamburger Mary's nevertheless qualifies as a breath of fresh air -- literally -- on the gay-bar scene: Its doors-wide-open breeziness is one reason it's such a refreshing place to sink a drink. A welcome jewel in the city's rejuvenation plan for the Wilton Drive corridor near Five Points, this uptempo eatery has a fully stocked bar, including Foster's, Guinness, and Bass Ale on tap and as many sprightly and colorful concoctions as there are colors of the rainbow (signature drink, naturally: Bloody Mary). Weekday happy hours (2 to 8 p.m.) and daily specials keep the costs down and the fun quotient high. Lively, friendly, campy service adds to the frivolity. Part of a California-based chain of "alternative" bar/restaurants generally located in cities' gay neighborhoods (Hillcrest in San Diego, West Hollywood in Los Angeles), this Mary's is only a few months old but quickly coming into its own. Generous outdoor seating, bright colors, and casual-chic furnishings help add to the lighthearted, high-energy charm. And the food, mostly juicy variations of big gourmet burgers, is pretty tasty too. New, free valet parking -- a sign that the management here is on the ball -- nullifies the only real negative of its growing popularity. Indeed, as its slogan would have it, you need only "Eat, Drink, and Be... Mary!"

Best Turnaround in Clubland

Indie rock at the Factory

Born under a bad sign, Fort Lauderdale's mullet haven the (ex-Metal) Factory doesn't want to die that way. It sure doesn't want to go out like the poor, doomed Station in Rhode Island, as a convalescent care center for hair-metal bands sputtering on their final fumes. At least, that's the objective of the ambitious local promoters working overtime to expunge the scent of Poison and Ratt from the room by booking area debuts from indie acts like Guided by Voices and Frank Black. The Factory's owners, unfortunately, haven't yet recognized the wisdom of this turnaround, stuck as they are in the era of wet T-shirt contests, cheap beer, and Axl Rose worship. But taking the Metal out of the name and filling the Factory with less-embarrassing fare has given the club the cachet it'll need to finally win the club crown.

Best Beer Selection

Billabong Pub

In carb-counting South Florida, beer hasn't historically been a big draw. For the most part, it's consumed without ice cubes, drastically diminishing its refreshment capabilities in the summer -- which for us is about nine months out of the year. To many of us, a microbrew is just a regular American draft lager served in an itty-bitty glass. The Billabong isn't a brew pub, nor does it go out of its way to champion regionally produced ale. But its taps regularly dispense beers you won't find anywhere else in the area, including Belgium's yummy wheat beer Hoegaarden White; Raspberry Lambic's sharp sour tang ; and dark mysterious Fuller's London Ale, a true cask-conditioned masterpiece just like you'd find in England. Hundreds more bottles of stouts, ales, and lagers mean you can take a trip around the world even if your elbows never leave the bar. The employees are zymurgological experts ready to answer any question or provide samples and guidance, but don't come in, wade through the regulars packing the 'bong, and ask for "the closest thing you've got to a Bud." The wiseacre behind the bar might just pour you a glass of water.

Best Strip Club

Rachel's Steak House

Here's the scenario: Your old man comes to town for the weekend and you're hoping for some grown-up male bonding to show Dad how mature you are. Baseball's boring, and the Marlins stink. So why not a strip club? Well, if you can stand the vision of Dad getting a lap dance, Rachel's Steak House is the place. This isn't the seedy strip joint of bachelor-party yore; no girls will grab dollar bills with normally hidden body parts, and you won't find any chili cheese fries on the menu. Tuxedoed waiters serve $35 fillets and three-pound lobsters on linen table cloths. Perfectly aged steaks, served à la carte, are lightly coated in butter and spices to give them a rich, creamy flavor. A dozen girls gyrate slowly and sedately, clothed for one number, in undies for the next, and then in only those five-inch stripper heels for the last. The girls aren't allowed to take it off where diners are paying $9 for asparagus, though a patron requests that they join him (clothed) for a bite, um, from the menu. The closest they'll get in their birthday suit to the dinner tables is in the brass cage five tables away from the $20 lunch buffet. While your waiter lights the flambéed bananas foster at tableside, take the opportunity to remind Dad about that once-awkward birds-and-bees talk.

Best Dive

Grins

On your right is a Vietnam Vet named Bob talking about witnessing Cambodians shot in a river as they try to flee the Khmer Rouge. On your left is a former SDS radical named Bill who has enough September 11 conspiracy theories to fill three Oliver Stone feature films. And across the bar is a cocky construction worker called "The Rickster" who talks smack with the best of them but has a good heart. On top of all that, you got two pool tables, buck-25 domestic drafts, a decent jukebox, and a waitress who'll wait to close the bar until the drinkers are ready to call it a night (morning). Welcome to paradise.

Best Of Broward-Palm Beach®

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