Audio By Carbonatix
Night Watch is a regularly-occurring feature by nightlife columnist Tara Nieuwesteeg.
Last weekend, it took a minute for me to muster up the courage to enter The Warehouse Pub (1599 NW 1st Court, Boca Raton;
561-392-3798).
Sure, this was Boca, but still — the pub was located in a dark part of town, and pick-up trucks (blaring country music) packed the parking lot. Good ol’ boys stood smoking and laughing raucously out front.
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I darted inside and was relieved–I discovered a narrow, well-lit room that smelled overwhelmingly like buttered popcorn. The place sported disco balls, lots of mirrors, paper Halloween decorations, and homey, wooden walls. The black-marble bar was narrow, but ran into a bigger room, with a few pool tables and several framed collages filled with drinking, smiling faces–many sporting big mustaches and outdated haircuts. The place was slammed, too–with the sort of familiar-faced, knee-slapping, hard-drinking crowd you find in the local watering holes of tiny country towns.
“We’ve been around for over 20 years,” said Jackie, the white-haired,
tie-dye-print shirt-wearing pub owner.
“We’ve been around longer than any other bar around here,” joked her
husband, George, “and still no one knows about us!”
“Seems an older crowd here,” I observed, counting the grey heads.
“We’re a mature crowd,” she said. “but we’re no old
fogies!”
Just then, a young woman in a black G-string and ruffled,
see-through top strolled by.
“Our girl of the evening,” George commented casually.
“Huh?” I did a double-take. Next-to-naked chick didn’t seem to quite
mesh with the low-key, country atmosphere. I watched as she leaned
against the bar and struck up a conversation with a woman sporting a
rooster shoulder-tattoo.
“She’s in here every weekend,” Jackie
explained. “She just sells raffle tickets and stuff. Sometimes she’s in
a bikini.”
Jackie told me a little bit about the bowling leagues, food,
and other great things the bar offered, but I was preoccupied by the
g-string. On my way out, Jackie told me the bar’s slogan: The best
little Warehouse.
— Tara Nieuwesteeg
