Happy Birthday, Mac!

Mac Klein, owner of Club Deuce on South Beach turned 100 recently. That used to be my home away from home for awhile, I remember his wife Mary's Decolectibles vintage shop across the street and the French sandwich shop next to that. For a long while, that was the world, Madonna had one of her naked pictures taken for her book, at the gas station across from the sandwich shop, and Porky's was filmed down the other way at the school on other end of the Street. Fourteenth Street really had a lot going on. The building looks the same as it did in the 1920s. We talk a lot of Tobacco Road, but the Deuce is really special, too.

My friends and I used to just walk in and they would plop our drinks down, already knowing what we would order. My friend Jack loved a certain song, I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't in the jukebox so he brought in a CD and it stayed and played in that jukebox for years. It was one of the first CD jukeboxes and we thought that was something special.

So many great times were had there - lots of sing-alongs, "Won't Back Down," by Tom Petty was probably the number one favorite in the sing-along. I remember watching The Golden Girls which they played on Saturday nights. I remember free hot dogs during either Dolphins or Marlins games, probably Marlins. And everyone stopped in, all walks of life, everyone was/is comfortable there.

My friends and I would sometimes have a caravan of cars over the causeway from the Grove to the Deuce, we would take up parking all up and down 14th street, there was easy parking back then on South Beach, which wasn't called South Beach then.

It must have been the late '80s because we went after Miami Vice added all the neon in 1984 or '85. The place had plain black walls until the producers of the tv show came in and added some color. So many memories. I should go back this week for a drink or two. Is the single pool table still there? Probably.