{"id":193861,"date":"2026-03-16T19:07:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/193861\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T19:07:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:07:37","slug":"taphouse-61-closes-after-nearly-nine-years-in-the-grand-central-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/193861\/","title":{"rendered":"TapHouse 61 closes after nearly nine years in the Grand Central District"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">While Alford says he has no immediate plans for what comes next, he hasn\u2019t ruled out returning to the bar business someday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for a long time, and it\u2019s been the most fun I\u2019ve ever had at a job,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not rushing into anything right now, but starting something again is always going to be in the back of my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Before closing the chapter on TapHouse 61, Alford also credited Robertson, his brother-in-law and the bar\u2019s founder, for making the concept possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cWithout Joe, none of this would exist,\u201d Alford said. \u201cHe kept this place alive from the Sly Bar days through TapHouse and through COVID. He\u2019s always been more of a behind-the-scenes guy, but this place wouldn\u2019t have happened without him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Even as TapHouse 61 closes its doors, Alford believes the type of neighborhood gathering spot the bar created will continue to exist somewhere in St. Pete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cSt. Pete\u2019s not going anywhere,\u201d he said. \u201cThese kinds of places might move around as the city changes, but there are still a lot of people here who want real neighborhood bars. That\u2019s never going to disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Alford says he has no immediate plans for what comes next, he hasn\u2019t ruled out returning to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-193861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}