Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Bearded Rooster dive bar opens this month
A high-end cocktail bar in a dive-bar setting, the Bearded Rooster will become the newest player on Delray Beach’s rapidly expanding Atlantic Avenue scene when it opens in late March.
At 800 square feet, the cocktail spot at 524 W. Atlantic Ave. will be dimly lighted and intimate, with a 1,200-square-foot backyard patio and wine garden decked out in market lights, artificial turf and potted herb plants. The bar occupies an historic building that’s housed several businesses since the 1930s, including a barbershop and, until 2017, the juke joint Vintage Tap, co-owner Stefano Barbagallo says. The bar will open Friday, March 29.
Barbagallo, whose surname translates to “Bearded Rooster” in Italian, says he wants the dive bar to toast his Sicilian heritage, and specialize in craft cocktails ($10-$11), beer ($5-$6) and rare wines ($5-$6) that are “cheaper than other bars on the Ave,” Barbagallo says. “I wanted it to have a funky dive-bar name, like the Thirsty Turtle or Black Bear Saloon.”
Cocktails, crafted with fresh basil, rosemary and mint leaves picked from Bearded Rooster’s backyard plants, will include Snozzberries, a blend of Hennessey Black cognac, blackberry puree, dry vermouth, a blackberry-lemon wheel and basil over crushed ice. Other creations: Card Y Bee, made with Beefeater Gin, Cardamaro (a wine aperitif ), raspberries, egg whites and cracked black pepper; and A Touch of Heaven with gin, Cocchi sweet vermouth, lemon and watermelon juice and mint and cucumber garnish.
Beer selections will be less adventurous, and lean on draft suds made by Coors and Narragansett, along with craft-beer throwbacks such as Flower Power IPA from New York’s Ithaca Brewing.
“Every new bar seems to focus on the coolest local brewery that opened yesterday, but we wanted to put the brakes on that,” says Barbagallo, whose bar will feature cornhole, dartboards and old-school video games. “Why can’t we focus on old nostalgia beers instead of the trendiest?”
For now, the Bearded Rooster will be perched a half-mile west of the Swinton-Atlantic Avenue restaurant row – not quite within walking distance, admits Barbagallo, who plans to hire 10 mixologists and servers. He’s betting the bar will seize on the West Atlantic culinary sprawl as it expands toward I-95. In January, the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency gave 7.4 acres of land to real-estate developer BH3, which is planning a $100 million retail-officehousing complex called “Atla West” between 600 and 800 West Atlantic.
But “Atla West” is years away from completion, Barbagallo says. “We have to incentivize people to make their way toward this part of Atlantic Avenue now,” he says. To pull that off, the bar will offer well versions of its craft cocktails for $5-$6, along with 20 percent off discounts for Delray Beach police, fire and public officials, along with hospitality industry professionals, he says.
With his brother, Mark, Barbagallo also owns Rank and File Social Club, a livemusic lounge and cocktail hub in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village. That project, announced last summer, finally broke construction last week and stalling for months as the brothers awaited city approvals and parking surveys.
The Bearded Rooster, 524 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach, will be open 4 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4 p.m.-2:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday and 2-10 p.m. Sunday. Call 561-774-2988 or go Instagram @thebeardedroosterdelray.