Forgive Deanne Crosby and Russ Twining their swashbuckling ways, but they think piracy can be delicious, and the proof is in their new Fort Lauderdale pub with $1,000 rums and upscale American-Caribbean cuisine.
Black Jack’s Rum Bar & Grille dropped anchor in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village on Monday, Jan. 26, with a gastropub menu of burgers, salads, prime-rib sandwiches and a rum wall stocked with 380 rare bottles. It’s Crosby and Twining’s second port-of-call in a year, after their flagship Black Jack’s debuted last January in Davie’s Zona Village apartment complex.
Aside from a Jolly Roger-inspired logo above the entrance, the pirate decor stops at Black Jack’s front door. Those expecting a dining room strung with ship riggings, rusty anchors and more buccaneer-chic theming will instead find a clean industrial space with wood-stained tables, flat-screen TVs, brass lantern lights and aquamarine epoxy floors that evoke the ocean. And that’s intentional, Crosby says.
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
Co-owners Russ Twining (also food and beverage director) and Deanne Crosby at Black Jack’s Rum Bar & Grille in Fort Lauderdale on Opening Day: Monday, Jan. 26. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
“We decided we didn’t want it to feel tacky like a Disney attraction,” Crosby tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I wanted people to feel like they’re on Exuma Island in the Bahamas. I wanted to elevate it and fill it with a menu with Caribbean influences, because most rums are made in the Caribbean.”
Black Jack’s expects to be docked downtown for a while, Crosby says. Her father, Fort Lauderdale restaurateur Ted Sabarese, originally signed a 10-year lease in 2023 for the freestanding building on Northeast Third Avenue, across the street from Peter Feldman Park, while it was under construction. (Sabarese, now 85, is semi-retired and leaves the day-to-day operation of Black Jack’s to Crosby and Twining.)
Twining and Crosby took a circuitous route to running a rummy pirate tavern. The son of a Baltimore minister, Twining was raised in a conservative Christian family and majored in classical voice and Bible ministry at Pennsylvania’s Lancaster Bible College. After graduating, he bartended for the next 16 years, which took him from California to Delaware to Florida.
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
Baby back ribs served at Black Jack’s Rum Bar & Grille. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Crosby, a New Jersey native, went from a career track in marine biology to breeding horses on her Davie farm while managing and bartending restaurants owned by Sabarese and his late business partner John Amodeo (The Drunken Taco, Giovanni’s Coal Fire Pizza, Margarita Cafe, Oasis Cafe). After Amodeo’s death in 2022, she took over her father’s restaurants, she says, but now she and Twining operate the two Black Jack’s locations exclusively.
The menu is identical to the Davie original, which brightens American gastropub fare with Caribbean flavors. Dishes include sous vide-cooked Baby Back Ribs, finished on the chargrill and coated in passionfruit rum barbecue sauce, and a 10-ounce Pacific Islander Grilled Pork Chop glazed with sweet-and-sour huli-huli, a piquant fusion of pineapple, sour orange, garlic and ginger. There’s also Ropa Vieja with fried sweet plantains and a 10-ounce churrasco-style steak accented with chimichurri.
Sides include Bahamian-style peas and rice, garlic mashed potatoes and jumbo asparagus.
Black Jack’s also carries Bahamian conch fritters, pork-belly chicharrones, chorizo paella, Argentine choripanes (grilled chorizo sandwiches), a chargrilled frita Cubana (a beef-chorizo blend burger topped with potato straws, lettuce and spicy ketchup) and Black Jack’s Fish + Chips (a 10-ounce snapper filet with coleslaw, steak fries and lemon-cilantro aioli.
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
A churrasco-style steak with chimichurri and asparagus is shown at Black Jack’s Rum Bar & Grille in Fort Lauderdale on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Twining and Crosby say they will soon add weekly specials that mirror their Davie counterpart, including all-you-can-eat fish and chips on Mondays and a $25 prime rib-and-shrimp combo on Wednesdays.
“Fort Lauderdale is a carbon copy of Davie,” Twining says. “We’ve got about nine rum distributors and we carry pretty much everything. Aged and premium, white and unaged, rums distilled in pot stills and wooden column stills from Jamaica, Barbados and Guyana.”
Their most expensive rums? That would be the 30-year Flor de Caña, a Nicaraguan single-barrel that costs $160 per two-ounce shot (or $1,000 for the bottle); and Black Tot Last Consignment, a Caribbean blend created by the British Royal Navy, with notes of vanilla and black fruit with a woody tobacco finish. That’s $150 per two-ounce shot, Twining says.
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
The rum wall at the new Black Jack’s in Fort Lauderdale contains many bottles of rare, premium and aged rums behind the bar. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
There are 13 cocktails and six mocktails, from Davie Jones’ Locker (a blend of Martinique’s Saint James, Indonesia’s Nusa Caña and Barbados’ Planteray rums plus orgeat, flaming lime and pineapple) to the Monkey Bite (scotch, spiced pear liqueur, ginger beer and dehydrated pear) to a virgin cucumber gimlet (muddled cucumber, lime, club soda).
“At our core, we’re an American grill,” Twining says. “But everything is designed to be paired with a pirate’s favorite drink: rum.”
Black Jack’s Rum Bar & Grille, at 505 NE Third Ave., Fort Lauderdale, opened on Monday, Jan. 26. Go to BlackJacksRumBar.com.
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
Co-owner Deanne Crosby mixes a “Davie Jones’ Locker” cocktail at Black Jack’s Rum Bar & Grille in Fort Lauderdale. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel
Ropa vieja tostones are shown at Black Jack’s Rum Bar & Grille in Fort Lauderdale. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)