Two Years at the Alley: Anniversary & Talk Like a Pirate Day
September 19, 2026 11:00 AM until September 19, 2026 11:00 PM
Two years ago, four people looked at Pinellas Park and decided it needed a cigar lounge.
Not a smoke shop with a few chairs pushed against the wall. A room. Somewhere anybody could walk in off 66th Street and feel like somebody, upscale without being precious about it, good leaf and good coffee under one roof, and none of the conventional rules about who a place like this is supposed to be for.
The idea was to prove it could be done a different way. With a pirate heart, which mostly means this: bow to no man. Every culture comes through the door, every politics comes through the door, and none of it decides who gets the good chair. In here we honor two things only. The bean and the leaf.
We also decided early that we would love the salty ones. Which was wise, because we are surrounded by ashholes.
Two years on, the room works. So we are throwing the doors open on Saturday, September 19, and no, the date is not a coincidence. September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, every year, and it has been the plan since the beginning.
What the day looks like
School is in session. Carlos rolls one by hand in front of the room, about an hour of it, open to everyone, no signup. It is the first rolling demonstration we have ever done, and you should stand close enough to ask him questions.
Paper & Strings play. They are Captains here now, which makes this their room too.
Mikey O entertains.
No set times on any of it. Doors at 11 in the morning and we go until about 11 at night, or until we decide to stop. Come when you can, stay as long as you like, and you will catch whatever is happening while you are here.
Free. No ticket, no cover.
Have Classic Heroes and The Long Watch on the day. They were built to sit together.
Bring somebody who has never set foot in a cigar lounge. That was the whole point two years ago, and it still is.
6850 66th St N, Pinellas Park. Park early. The spots beside the barber shop on the 69th Ave side are your friend, and there is more out back by the loading dock.