Colonialtown Is The Hip Heart of Orlando

Sip and Logan's Bistro on Virginia Ave.

The largest of Orlando's central neighborhoods, Colonialtown has a laid back, easy going and artsy vibe that beats at the city's heart. The restaurants, cafes and nightspots are as varied as the retail, which ranges from trendy art galleries and retro clothing and antique shops to mainline stores like Barnes and Noble, Marshalls and Steinmart. The eastern part of Colonialtown was home to Orlando's first and most fashionable Mall, Colonial Plaza. In its heyday the area had a five story Jordan Marsh, the venerable Rutlands, Gibbs Louis, Lillie Rubin and Hattie Fredericks and scores of other elegant boutiques.

At the Plaza, Ronnies Restaurant was a terrific a delicatessen, not surpassed by its inspiration, the ever trendy Wolfies of Miami Beach. Woe unto you if you entered into the line that said parties of three or more if you were alone. You would be unceremoniously asked to exit and reenter through the neighboring door, even though only a red velvet rope separated you from the correct line. At Ronnies, rules were rules. The wildly varied bread basket and flaky Danish pastries would be kept flowing as long as you liked but you were never allowed to be brought more than two pats of butter or cream cheese at a time. No night at the ballet or symphony was considered complete without a stop for a treat at Ronnies. And at midnight, both the doors could have long lines around the corner. It's somewhat surprising that fifty years later, the atmosphere at TooJays is far less glamorous than its predecessor. Alas the old Colonial Plaza was taken down in the nineties, to be replaced by the far more mundane, though still ok Shoppes at Colonial Plaza. Gone is the taxistand that held a long line of yellow cabs and Checkers to ferry one safely home after a night of revelry. The bus sub-station is a feeble replacement and shuts down at midnight. I defy anyone to describe that as progress.

None the less, the Colonialtown of today has a large number of terrific hangouts that have grown up in the intervening years. The Peacock Room, Drunken Monkey, Stardust and a host of other intriguing spots have developed a cult following of artsy, hip and literate types that insure that this area is downtown Orlando's Village. The energy flows as smoothly as a cup of sweet chai tea goes down a parched throat. Forays out into suburbia make me crave a return to the mellow atmosphere that mark this neighborhoods mellow and unpretentious flow. With a strong and vital heart like this, Orlando's vitality seems assured.

Colonialtown is roughly bounded by Antique Row and Orange Avenue on the West, Maguire Boulevard on the East, Robinson Street on the south and Loch Haven Park and Leu Gardens and Corrine Drive on the north. The area encompasses about two and a half square miles and no part of it is more than a few minutes bike ride from another. The area has a very eclectic, organic and impromptu quality that make it the antithesis of the theme parks that are so often perceived as being Orlando. Those places are ten to twenty miles southwest of anything even remotely resembling the real city of Orlando. Someone who visited the 1964 World's Fair in New York at Flushing Meadows without having gone into Manhattan would have had an analagous experience to someone who went to Disney and and never experienced downtown Orlando. World Fairs and Theme Parks can be very enjoyable, but they offer scant experience of any place with real culture and history. In my Colonialtown theme park, all the actors are improvising their costumes and scripts and the serendipity of that casts me as a willing participant in the production.