Two things that are thin on the ground in Orlando nightlife — a city that seemingly never met a craft cocktail it didn’t go gaga over — are no-frills dive bars and lesbian bars. A new pop-up concept taking over Conduit this week, Mommy Knows Best, is attempting to fill both of these voids.
T Madan-Felten, a member of the Orlando chapter of the Dyke Nite events collective and a bartender at LGBTQ+ spot Outpost in Thornton Park, is the brains behind this quirky monthly pop-up, intended partly as a tribute to a long-gone Orlando bar.
“I love dive bars. When I first moved to Orlando, my absolute favorite bar was St. Matt’s. I just loved it there. Rest in peace for real,” Madan-Felten tells Orlando Weekly. “Obviously, there’s a lot of really cool queer events, and I love them. I help organize them. I go to them. But there’s just something about going somewhere and having just a jukebox and the connections that you make.”
Maybe it’s because our own brains are pickled from watching endless episodes of Cheers growing up, but they are really onto something here. Beyond just cheap, strong pours vs. elegant prepared cocktails debate, the dive bar at its best can be a multigenerational, working-class neighborhood gathering spot. Orlando still has a few true-blue dive bars like Spatz, Whiskey Lou’s, Burton’s and Nora’s Sugar Shack and they’re great. But there’s a definite need being addressed here.
“Dive bars are working class. They’re for the outcast-y people. They’re intergenerational, which is something I don’t always see at the club, queer intergenerational spaces. We’re literally losing history and the ability to make connections with people different from ourselves because we’re going to such hyper-curated things,” says Madan-Felten. “Which again, I love a hyper-curated event. Dyke Nite obviously has a specific audience, but there’s something about a mixed bag that I think teaches a person about so many things.”
Conduit, always a venue up for taking a chance (tell us another space that has hosted both ultra culty Satanic metal legends Profanatica and trans-focused drag showcase Gala of Ghouls … within just over a week of one another), seemed a natural home. Added points if you remember its previous incarnation as dive bar (which happened to have a live stage) the Haven Lounge.
“I thought of Conduit because it’s cool as hell. The owner’s cool. I like the people there, and it gives divey, which is what I want. I wanted things to be like grimy and cool, random fliers and all that type of shit,” Madan-Felten says. “The first few will just be me bartending along with Amber Teicher, who’s the lead of their bar program. … Eventually the hope is to have guest bartenders, different dykes around town who bartend in restaurants or other clubs.”
Mommy Knows Best is a satisfyingly simple concept: Come hang out. Grab a drink. Socialize.
You will probably end up talking at least briefly to someone you wouldn’t necessarily otherwise. There will be an ad hoc jukebox/Touchtunes situation for music (for better or for worse), and there should be darts on offer. Madan-Felten sees it potentially as one of the increasingly rare and coveted “third spaces.”
In true DIY fashion, Madan-Felten is scouting Facebook Marketplace to find a couch or a couple of cozy pieces to give the pop-up proper divey ambience beyond Conduit’s flyer bedecked walls. Past that, they just want things to happen organically, visually and beyond.
“My favorite spaces are the ones that just feel like some crazy cat lady’s garage. Just tchotchkes, random ‘where is that from?’ I love that aesthetic and it takes time to build that up,” says Madan-Felten. “The thing about a dive bar is it’s cool because it becomes co-created over time by who goes there.”
Madan-Felten illustrates that point by enthusing about the colorful paper fish hanging aquarium-like from the ceiling of Stardust Video, spontaneously created by Orlando artist and Stardust fixture Doug Rhodehamel as a tribute to the memory of his friend Dave Plotkin.
“I think I would have done my job if people start to feel a sense of ownership in it,” Madan-Felten adds.
There will be a drink special that’s highly conceptual — and yet not.
“We’re doing an experience drink, if you will. It’s gonna be called ‘Mommy Thinks You’re Doing a Good Job.’ It’ll be like $15, and you’ll get whatever domestic or can you want,” says Madan-Felten. “I will hold the beer for you and feed it to you as I’m giving you affirmations about what a good job you’re doing. And optionally a kiss on the forehead at the end. I just wanted to have something very campy and kind of hot, but also kind of stupid, but also kind of nice.”
Beyond the in-jokes and nostalgia for times that will perhaps never return, there’s community-building at work here.
“I want to be clear that it’s dyke-centered, for all the people who come under ‘dyke,’ right? So like lesbians, trans-masc people, trans-femme people, bisexual, all these people fall under ‘dyke’ if that’s how they identify, so they are the center. But also, there are people who love dykes and feel comfortable in those places because dyke spaces tend to be very accepting of trans people in a way that not all mainstream places are,” says Madan-Felten. “I think that with lesbian spaces, the reason people love them so much is because they tend to be more accepting and open. Whatever the reason that you’re here, I’m not going to question it as long as you’re not being an asshole.”
Mommy Knows Best takes place the second Monday of every month at Conduit.
7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 21, Conduit, 6700 Aloma Ave., Winter Park, conduitfl.com, free.
