Eclipse Bar Riverside — Restaurant in Jacksonville

I regularly attend the Pineapple Party with my wife, and it disappoints me every time.

For context, I’ve attended Pineapple parties all over Florida – Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, and even Atlanta - and Eclipse really offers the worst. In fact, it’s just a regular bar night advertised as Pineapple. Nothing new, nothing sensational, nothing that makes you wake on Saturday morning and think “today is the day I’m having the night of my life at Eclipse.”

Last Saturday, around 10 PM, I opened the door, paid our fees, and walked to the bar. Then I looked at their TVs - the first disappointment. The one close to the entry door was passing American football, on top of the bar, funny videos – I loved the one that showed a man petting a Grizzly bear - and next to the DJ station across the dance floor, a music playlist.

My experience tells me that screens are not decorative or entertaining devices. Not on that night. They are tools that amplifies the Pineapple atmosphere, by integrating people, by helping them to realize they are in the right place at the right time of their existences, by making them climb on the wheel of craziness. We don’t go to Eclipse on a Pineapple Party Night to watch sports, or see TikTok videos, or see what song comes after the next one. I don’t pay a fee at the door for such a banal experience. At this moment, management should know what we are looking for when we go to Eclipse at Pineapple Night. I’d love to say it here.

A good Pineapple Party is the one you go to fulfill your dreams, and the place makes them come true or at least try. The Eclipse Pineapple Party works the opposite way. You go excited and it kills your desires.

Once you throw a Pineapple Party, you hold a responsibility in your hands. The responsibility of making your Pineapple people feel they arrived at a Pineapple heaven.

Second blow. A few moments after I arrived, a game that I presumed was bingo had finished, and they were announcing the winners. The cute girl next to us won. I saw her prize: a pair of socks and bottle of something to drink. She looked at it. Her group friends looked at it. Two seconds later they had forgotten about it.

That’s how a place misses the chance to create a memorable experience.

How easy would it have been to give her a toy or Pineapple souvenir? How much fun would she have had talking about it with her group? Even days after. Wasn’t she looking for that experience at Eclipse anyway? A Pineapple atmosphere orients every single detail of the experience to let people express themselves as they are and how they want by putting more people with similar status of minds in the same room. Period. Any deviation from that is just a failure.

The biggest disappointment is the music. Yesterday, I looked at the DJ station for a few minutes. The artist playing the music never looked at the dance floor. Never opened himself to receive feedback from the audience. He was too absorbed in enjoying the music he loved. He forgot he was working; he forgot that a DJ has an obligation with the audience. The obligation to make the damn place explode and make people euphoric. How? Good music at a club always combines: current music that makes you move – whether it is good or bad is irrelevant – and music that keeps the flow of the night, in this case, Pineapple flow. The combination of both looping constantly gives identity to the place and wings to people.

Music is not merely an air vibration. It’s a crime to mistreat it like that. Music is the way people connect with each other. The way people come body to body, lips to lips, eyes to eyes. It's sacred.

If you want to take the Pineapple community seriously, let us know, if not, also let us know so we don’t waste our time, money, and faith in a night bleeding into oblivion.

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Update: 2/5/23: Looks like Eclipse is the new hot spot for Sunday Funday! Great drinks, great music, great crowd, great bartenders and ample parking, unlike other places.

Update 5/31/22: The owner issued a sincere mea culpa for what happened. The co-owners who objected to the LGBTQ crowd are gone. We look forward to seeing what happens. I'll be updating again after our next visit.

This review was being updated to reflect the fact that the management of this club has decided to cancel the DJ on Friday nights because they don't want that type of clientele meaning the LGBTQ community. This is not the 1st time they have done this to a DJ or event sponsor. This is however the 1st time my community has been singled out.

I guess our money is good enough for them.

The only reason this is a 4-star and not a 5-star review is that right now, with all of the construction of the new roundabout at Riverside and Herschel, it can be a bit complicated making your way over to the bar. After multiple failed attempts to sneak through the neighborhood to get there, we finally found a route from Roosevelt via St Johns, coming in from the west.

Mike B. played a great mix of current, old -school and electro-inspired dance music accompanied by hypnotic videos. He managed to inspire several patrons to stop taking selfies and come out to the dance floor and actually dance. I haven't seen that in a while.

Pixie and the guys behind the bar provided fast, friendly service of well-made drinks. Between customers, you could tell they were having as good of a time as the patrons. The energy was friendly and inviting, not at all standoffish as many of the few remaining nightclubs can feel. The expansion of the Super NES systems to multiple games on the side tables is a nice touch.

If you've never been to Eclipse, Friday night is a great introduction (or reintroduction) to a Riverside staple that has survived dating...

This place is our home away from home. We have been going here for years. We even brought our parents one night and that was the first time they partied in over 30 years. Last night Holland went above and beyond to make sure that I had coffee so that I could stay awake and alert as the designated driver. He has always been good to us. He also makes sure everything is clean and is on top of any situation that needs to be controlled. The other bartenders were amazing as well. This is our go to place with amazing staff and great music. We even got plans to hire the band "Perfect Strangers" for our anniversary party as soon as we find a venue as they were spot on every song and the lead singer Vito personally came to us to conversate and introduce himself. I hope This place stays around for many more decades. They treat everyone like people should be treated and everyone is accepted. The manager is one of the nicest men...