Let the needle drop.
Easy Tiger HiFi Lounge, a new listening lounge and cocktail bar from local entrepreneur Matt Kaye and his partners, debuts next weekin St. Petersburg’s EDGE District.
The spot opens Thursday, April 16, at 915 First Ave. N., just two doors down from The Bends, another bar Kaye and his partners opened in 2012.
Three years in the making, the Easy Tiger team has outfitted the spot witha state-of-the-art audio system, a sleek interior and an intriguing roster of creative and globally-inspired cocktails.
We stopped by the spot this week to scope out the space and menu. Here’s what to expect.
Kaye is partnering in the venture with his wife Victoria Kaye, Craig Dragoonis and Chris Stone. The group opened The Bends together almost 14 years ago.
Kaye and Stone, a designer and builder, also helped design and build Slim Charmer and Wild Child, which Kaye and local chef Rob Reinsmith run in the Grand Central District.
Kaye and Stone are St. Petersburg locals and longtime friends who grew up skateboarding together. Dragoonis and Kaye met as teenagers through skateboarding, too.
Wild Child beverage director Chris Trull runs the beverage program at Easy Tiger, and he and the team have created a menu that is playful and refined. Ben Finkelstein, who has worked at Bar Mezzo and Sonder Social Club, will lead the bar, Kaye said.
Of the cocktail menu, Trull said they are “trying to get as many world influences” in the drinks as possible to “match the eclectic music scene.”
“I want the cocktails to match the playfulness of the music vibe.”
Trull and the team are offering technique-driven cocktails that aren’t too fussy. Think: housemade tinctures and bitters, fat washing, alternative acids and some fermentation.
In their version of an Incredible Hulk cocktail, the traditionally equal-parts Hypnotiq liqueur and Hennessey Cognac drink gets an update with Midori and force carbonation. Trull described it as tropical with tangerine, lemon and the Japanese melon flavor of Midori.
“How do I make an Incredible Hulk taste like a Hi-C Ecto-Cooler?” Trull said.
Kaye said one of his favorite drinks is the Lavish Habits, Trull’s riff on a Pornstar Martini, traditionally a passionfruit- and vanilla vodka-based martini served with a side of sparkling wine. Easy Tiger’s cocktail is named for a Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist song.
In Easy Tiger’s version, you can expect “marshmallow Arette Repasado, passionfruit, Prosecco acid, clarified” and passionfruit caviar, Trull said.
Easy Tiger’s Old Fashioned features housemade Okinawan black sugar syrup mixed with Old Forrester 100 Proof Bourbon, barrel-aged bitters and a toasted barley tincture.
“We definitely are okay with swinging for the fences a little bit and taking chances with this beverage program,” Kaye said.
With sleek, comfortable booths, moody lighting and a top-of-the-line sound system — including Klipsch Heritage speakers including two Cornwalls hooked to a McIntosh amplifier — the lounge is designed with music and socializing in mind. The Cornwalls are recessed into soft pillars, bookending the bar and mirrored backsplash elegantly.
Curved soft corners and lines dominate the oblong, high-ceilinged room. The marble bar is colored throughout with wispy swaths of calcite and serpentine. The walls and ceiling are reinforced for sound.
Kaye described Easy Tiger as having design elements of Art Deco and Brutalism.
Kaye purchased the building almost three years ago from renowned architect and St. Pete native Sanford Goldman. Goldman studied under Frank Lloyd Wright and was like a “grandfather” figure to Kaye and his partners before he died in 2023, he said.
“He really took a chance on us,” Kaye said. One of the last things Goldman did was sell the building to the local group, in the hopes its history could be preserved in the face of new development.
DJ Casper, a local DJ and veteran of the scene, is the music director at Easy Tiger. Casper will bring in DJs every night the bar is open, which will beThursday through Sunday for now. The space is wired for analog and digital sound, with a DJ booth in the back. DJs will be curated from outside the city, state and maybe even the country, Kaye said.
Kaye doesn’t see Easy Tiger as a dance club, but understands that people may want to vibe and dance, he said.
“Once a place opens up, it becomes alive, and then the community tells you what they want to do.”
915 First Ave. N. @easytigerhifi.
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