What do Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys and the Ronette’s have in common? They all once played at New York City’s legendary Peppermint Lounge.
Soon, Tampa will get its very own Peppermint Lounge — a different concept from a different owner during a very different time period, but one that’s inspired by the 1960s music club where everyone from Judy Garland to Marilyn Monroe to Frank Sinatra once held court.
Tampa restaurateur Ty Rodriguez is behind the new “music-forward bar,” which he described as a vinyl-centric bar and lounge set to open this fall at 1605-7 N. Franklin St., in the Tampa Heights neighborhood. The bar will take over what was once Foundation Coffee Co. and later Flower Crown Kombucha, a roughly 4,200-square-foot footprint that includes a spacious 1,300-square-foot outdoor patio.
It’s “not a music venue and not a listening lounge,” Rodriguez said. Rather, he imagines a place that evokes a bygone “jukebox kind of era, where people get to play what they want to.” At the Peppermint Lounge, the emphasis will be on vinyl recordings curated by Rodriguez and a rotating cast of bartenders.
The bar is a passion project for Rodriguez, who said he’s spent years dreaming about opening something like this. One of the founding board members of Gasparilla Music Festival, and the fest’s current food and beverage director, Rodriguez is a local industry veteran. He opened the lauded Seminole Heights restaurant Rooster & The Till with chef Ferrell Alvarez in 2013 and was an integral member of the Proper House Group’s growing portfolio of restaurants until splitting from the group late last year.
“I’m not sure that I ever really wanted to own 10 restaurants,” Rodriguez said. “Ferrell and I had a dream and we accomplished it.”
For his latest endeavor, Rodriguez is going at it solo — a few investors, but no other business partners. And the new venue will serve beer, wine and cocktails, but no food. Rodriguez seemed ready to leave the world of restaurant ownership behind.
“No to food,” he said. “Emphatically, no.”
Instead, Rodriguez dug deep into the history of the original Peppermint Lounge, a Midtown Manhattan bar that attracted a diverse clientele and became popular with famous musicians and socialites after capitalizing on the Twist dance craze.
Rodriguez said he was surprised to find while researching the legendary club thatno one had trademarked the name. He also spent a month driving across the country visiting local dive bars and music institutions to gather inspiration.
Rodriguez said he’ll look to groundbreaking artists that played at some of the country’s most venerable music institutions when curating the bar’s set list. He and his staff will post the evening’s playlist every day at 3 p.m. on their social media accounts so that guests can plan their evenings around which musicians and groups they’d like to hear.
To design the spot’s drink program, Rodriguez is working with Danny Guess, a close friend and the former beverage director at Tampa’s Fly Bar. Rodriguez said the menu will feature beer, wine and classic cocktails, and that he’s looking for “old-school bartenders” to helm the spot.
“I’m calling it ‘progressive drinks and unpretentious service,’” he said.
Rodriguez is still working out how the space will be built-out but said that he envisions six-person booths and a room surrounded by vinyl and several large-print photographs by iconic rock photographer Jim Marshall. There will be a small stage for the occasional musical act, like a jazz trio. But he said the plan is not to become a live music venue or to bring in DJs.
“This vinyl thing is hot right now,” he said. “But there’s more to this vinyl listening lounge than DJs coming in and performing.”
People should still be able to have a conversation, Rodriguez said, and get to know each other a little at the bar.
“It’s more about the communal aspect of being out and around people and getting out of your house.”
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