One of my favorite local characters sits there catching the breeze, maybe listing just a little, on a corner in Key West, right down Whitehead Street from the Hemmingway House. He’s apparently about a hundred and twenty years old, but who can tell anybody’s real age down here? We’re all a little weather-beaten.
The Green Parrot, as far as I can tell, has been open (except for a few hurricanes and a pandemic) since 1890-ish. I mean, I assume they close the doors and windows sometimes, but I’ve never seen it. It seems to always be wide open, spilling music and people and the smell of free popcorn out onto the street.
Live music and cold beer, jumbles of meaningful randomness decorating the walls and ceiling, just utter dive bar perfection. Nothing corporate or homogenized about it. I almost wish it could be a bit more of a secret, because the idea of it getting too popular and someone turning it into another generic tourist trap is horrifying. That’s the problem with so many formerly perfect things; they get ruined when people try to “improve” them.
The best time to go to the Parrot is Friday for five-thirty “sound check”. I know it’s early. The sun is still high in the sky. You may not be ready to leave the pool or the beach or the boat. But trust me, you want to catch the early show before the bachelorette parties and overserved sunburnt cruisers arrive. Otherwise, you won’t get the real experience, which is an eclectic mixed bag of the best people.
The great thing about perfect dive bars is that literally anyone could walk in at any time. And they do. The famous, the infamous, and the just plain intriguing. All ages, shapes, sizes, colors and tax brackets. The Green Parrot is not your typical bar, because Key West is not your typical place. If you like people watching, this is your spot. If diversity makes you cranky, stay home.
From a distance it almost looks like a block party. There’s a regular contingent who sit outside and even across the street in front of the Courthouse Deli, away from the fray. Someone’s abuela in a housedress tapping her toes to the music, underage skaters bumming cigarettes, old men drinking Forties out of paper sacks. Always a couple of old dogs wandering around without leashes, too lazy to stray very far from their humans.
But inside is where you want to be.
Probably you just want to get a beer. If you’re real sweet they will make you a mojito but anything more fancy than that is probably pushing it when it’s crowded. I sometimes get one but never two, because I live here and I want the bartenders to like me. Then find a spot to perch. Good luck snagging a bar seat; those retired pirates have been glued to those stools since the 80s and they ain’t moving.
But maybe you can sit on the deep windowsills or prop yourself near the popcorn machine and people watch and make up stories about who they are and what brought them down here to the End of the Road.
There’s an elegant older Cuban couple who gracefully navigate the dance floor like it’s 1960 and there’s an orchestra playing instead of a funk band from Tampa. He wears a guayabera and her hair is artfully twisted around with a gold comb.
A very tan and very glamorous blonde of indeterminate age who is always, always dressed to the nines, right down to a fabulous matching hat and sunglasses that she never takes off. She will happily just groove for a while and then float on out the door, mysterious and smiling.
There are any number of salty, scruffy men who are as likely to be multimillionaires as they are to be living in a half-sunk sailboat in the harbor. And this being Key West, it’s very often both.
There’s a couple who I imagine were high school sweethearts thirty or so years ago, and she is still every bit the cool artsy girl she must have been back then. Long silver-threaded hair down to her waist, always dressed in black, and seems to know the words to just about every song. Her fireman husband is in awe of her, as he should be, while she dances around him. Later, they lean up against the pool table and share popcorn.
You’ll see expensively well-preserved dowagers encased in Lilly Pulitzer. Bearded guys in long sleeved fishing shirts drinking dark, scary-looking beers. Barefoot stoner girls with Sanskrit tattoos. Gay folks in Pride t-shirts and rednecks in boots. It’s a variety pack of the best of Key West. When we say we are “One Human Family” we mean it.
The live music can be anything from blues to funk to country to rock. And soul and folk and reggae and bluegrass. Or all of the above. As long as it’s fun and mellow and you can bop your head and dance around a little. You won’t find any EDM or heavy metal here. It’s just not the vibe. There have been plenty of famous artists to take the stage at the Parrot, but sometimes times it’s traveling bands of various levels of notoriety who bounce around the country in a van pulling a trailer packed to overflowing with equipment and instruments. But the talent is always fun and high energy, no matter who it is.
People will be dancing. Some clearly better than others but this is the Parrot and we don’t judge. It’s about having a good time and that’s all. The difference between good dancers and bad dancers is and will always be, confidence. I say this as a middle aged ex-debutante who can go from prim and proper wallflower to bootyshaker in the space of three Coors Lights.
And then the band will take a break around seven-thirty or so, which is just the right time to go find some dinner. And after you finish your oysters and conch fritters and maybe another mojito, you can ease on home or come back to the Parrot later for the “real” show.
Walk Home Together 