Tobacco Road Wins Best Burger in 2008!

Tobacco Road has provided a venue for local artists, and booze for its loyal patrons, for what seems like an eternity. (Actually, in Miami, the club's 96 years comes pretty close to eternal.) But The Road stands out among its competitors for more than its longevity; you'll be tapping your toes and rocking out any day you walk in. The open-air patio provides the perfect festival atmosphere, even if there is only one band playing. Sure, Tobacco Road isn't as seedy as it once was but what centenarian is?

It's Tuesday. Concert canceled. Need to hear some music. Need a beer. Need to park. Need to park for free. Need to dive into some fries. Need not to be alone. Tobacco Road. It doesn't matter if it's Wednesday or Friday either. There isn't another place in town you can be guaranteed all the above every night -- when that other thing falls through. Whatever the night, you'll likely bump into someone you know. You'll hear rock and Latin and folk. You'll have your choice of outdoor or indoor seating. You'll get a really good hamburger. You'll be fine.

If bar food everywhere was as good as it is at Tobacco Road, beer drinkers would be even fatter than they already are. The Road slings the nonliquid staples: burgers, nachos, chili, French fries, wings. Except everything is done to chin-wiping excess. Prime example: four kinds of burgers with names (Death, Mega) that convey a Mad Max spirit of gluttony. There are two types of fries and five ways to order a chicken sandwich. Appetizers drop to discount rates during happy hour (5:00 to 7:00 p.m.). After midnight when one needs extra party fuel, the prices on the big-ticket items (T-bone steak, rib eye sandwich, filet mignon) dip to six bucks. But what truly makes the Road's food the finest around are the weekday specials. What other bar offers (beginning on Monday and running until Thursday) perfectly prepared rack of lamb, lobster, spaghetti with meatballs, and steak, each under ten bucks? Combine an abundance of munchables with kicking live music and a superb selection of libations and that swelling gut seems a small price to pay.

There's a saying that given enough time, even the town whore becomes respectable. That adage certainly applies to Tobacco Road, rapidly closing in on a century as one of Miami's most cherished watering holes. Once a notorious den of iniquity, the Road now has a family friendly vibe, or at least the atmosphere of an all-American frat party. Sure you'll still find plenty of cops swarming the premises, but unlike the Prohibition Era, these days they're there as (hopefully off-duty) customers. In fact wander out back to the open-air patio to catch a breeze off the river, and you're likely to come across several city prosecutors settling into a beer and a burger. Of course what draws the consistently packed crowds isn't just the locale, the brew, or the pub chow (solid as it may be); it's the music, which remains both very live and thankfully little more than spit-polished. Gaze upon the walls here and you'll spy framed posters immortalizing past Road gigs by protorocker legends such as John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, and Junior Wells, even outer-space soul-jazz visionary Sun Ra, all asserting that the "disco sucks" debate is far from over, at least in this joint. Veteran barflies may grouse that the booking policy is a bit less impressive on the talent front these days, but as last November's George Clinton date here proved, heavy hitters still occasionally grace the stage. Moreover Tobacco Road ensures a steady diet of roots-oriented outfits -- local and national, up-and-coming and unknown -- and continues to be a welcome home within which to wail away, providing a solid bet for an unpretentious, relaxed night out. In a city whose nightlife milieu increasingly is given over to tense stargazing, that says something.

Graham Wood Drout and Albert Castiglia
This is such a devious award. Drout (famous as frontman of Miami's premier blues-rock band, Iko-Iko) and Castiglia (a local blues vet perhaps best known as a longtime sideman for Junior Wells) have won "Best of Miami" and all sorts of other awards in the past. They're stunning talents to be sure. And when their paths crossed — well, consider the fate of just one of the collaborations from their 2006 album, The Bittersweet Sessions. It's called "The Ghosts of Mississippi." Castiglia recorded another version for his 2006 album, A Stone's Throw. And soon after that, Joey Gilmore cut a treatment of it for his own album, which was itself named for the song. How good is "Ghosts"ç Gilmore won the International Blues Foundation's award for best blues performance with his version. Drout received the Blues Critics' Choice honor for song of the year. Living Blues magazine put Bittersweet in its top twenty CDs of the year, and "Ghosts" went to number one on MusicChoice. So what's so devious about one more award for Mr. Drout and Mr. Castigliaç While we can't imagine musical life without Iko-Iko (currently on a major tour of the Southeast) and Castiglia, we do want to encourage these two super-talented bluesmen to continue their collaborative ways. After all, we'll need a winner for this category next year, too. You can see these guys at Tobacco Road. Go to www.tobacco-road.com for times and dates.