“This is pretty much my last resort,” said the 36-year-old Tampa native, adding his family already left for South Carolina. “I brought my blow-up mattress. I wouldn’t lie down on the booths without a sheet.”
Tampa Bay residents chose a lot of places to ride out the storm – some even left the state – but the dozen people inside this dark den of sin had everything a battered Floridian would need in a hurricane: booze, football on the flat screen TV, dart boards and billiards. The latter was even operable during a power outage.
The club was officially closed, so no dancers on this evening. Just the owners’ friends, family and a few dogs weathering the storm in the most secure building they know.
At the bar, a big guy who goes by “Confucious” didn’t seem too worried, although his truck was almost out of gas.
“It’s going to be a wild ride but we’ll survive,” he said. “We’re gonna be safe but …”
He paused.
“Shit. I don’t know.”
The bartender, Michele Esposito, poured the brews and made a mean Bloody Mary with cucumber vodka and bacon crumbles.
Earlier in week, Esposito had to evacuate her condo on Indian Shores.
“I was watching TV, thinking we’re good and suddenly I have to evacuate,” she said. “I always decided if they tell me I have to go, I have to go.”
She only grabbed some clothes and a file folder filled with important documents.
“I always thought, ‘It’s not going to happen here,’” she said. “There is panic in this one.”
As a table cheered the Philadelphia – Washington game, Stephens grabbed another beer.
He wasn’t too worried about the coming hurricane, adding he might step outside to survey damage during the eye of the storm.
“We did it in Hurricane Charley,” he said, referring to the 2004 storm that lashed Punta Gorda and Central Florida. “We ran around outside with a bottle of Jagermeister.”
This article appears in Sep 7-14, 2017.