The Bull — Restaurant in Key West

The place was good in the afternoon when the sun was still up and the drinks were cold and the tables were clean. There was nothing wrong with the place then. A man could sit and drink and watch the people and feel the ceiling fan move the heavy air and think about nothing at all, which was good.

In the evening the blue lights came on and the music started and the people changed. The daytime people with their shopping bags and ice cream cones were gone, and the night people came with their loud laughs and their need to be noticed. The drinks were still cold but now they meant something different.

The bar stood on Duval Street, which was the main artery where everything flowed - money, booze, music, and people who had come to forget somewhere else. The wooden beams above were strong and scarred with age. The wood paneling on the walls absorbed decades of stories that would never be written.

The bar itself was simple and honest. Wood and brass and stools worn smooth by countless bodies. Nothing fancy, nothing false. A place that didn't need to try, because it had always been there and would remain after you left.

From the open-air section, a man could watch the street. Women in dresses with tan shoulders. Men with sunburned foreheads beneath white hats. Everyone moving with that peculiar loose gait that comes after the third drink. The street flowed like a river, and the bar was the shore where you could rest and observe the current.

The murals on the walls showed the sea and the beach and people enjoying themselves in ways that seemed simpler than now. The paint was good. It had been done by someone who understood color and light and what a man might want to look at while drinking.

The bartenders were neither friendly nor unfriendly. They did their job with the economy of movement that comes from repetition and purpose. They didn't need to talk much. The important thing was that the glass never stayed empty for long.

In the corner, musicians played. Not too loud at first, but louder as the night progressed and the crowd needed more noise to match what was happening inside them. The music was good when you wanted it and easy to ignore when you didn't.

Above was another bar called the Whistle, and above that the Garden of Eden where people went to remove their clothes and pretend they had discovered something new. The whole building rising up like the levels of consciousness - the ground floor for watching, the middle for listening, the top for forgetting yourself completely.

The wooden lattice dividers created territories within the room. Tribes formed and dissolved as the night went on. People from Minnesota sat next to people from Georgia and found they could talk easily here, in a way they never would at home.

The whole place stayed open to the street, inviting the outside in, challenging the air conditioning to fight against the wet heat of the Keys. The ceiling fans turned and turned, moving the air without ever making it cool.

At the tables, tourists leaned toward each other, speaking too loudly, as if volume could preserve memories. The locals sat at the bar, quiet and economical with their movements, drinking with purpose rather than celebration.

The wooden floor had been walked on by so many feet that it had a patina like an old saddle. It creaked in places where the joists beneath had settled, as if the building itself was sighing under the weight of all it had seen.

At night the open windows framed palm trees lit from below, their fronds moving slightly in what passed for a breeze. The trees were patient. They had seen tourists come and go, had watched the rise and fall of fortunes, the endless cycle of people discovering what had always been there.

The drink in front of you sweated in the heat, the glass leaving a ring on the wood. Nothing was permanent except the bar itself. Tomorrow the tables would be cleaned and the glasses washed and it would all begin again, good in a simple way that needed no...

My husband and I fell in love with Key West, every ounce of the town & it's people were so delightful and amazing, the only terrible experience we had was walking up and down Deval one night, stopping in every little place we could and checking out the town (we aren't big drinkers, but do, and we are restaurant connoisseurs and I am a free lance writer who shares a lot about traveling and experiences and the dos and don'ts)... unfortunately our experience when approaching this bar one evening was so volatile. The female "bouncer", I guess she was, was so incredibly rude to me like I was some delinquent, (my husband was carrying my i.d. and she was rude about that, also super nasty about me not having enough wrist showing to put my wrist band on. Mind you I'm 33 and this was the only place that ever I.D. us or had a wrist band policy) I am so thankful my husband finally said something and told her she didn't need to be speaking to me that way, we ended up leaving of course but it was just wild, and the most uncomfortable experience we had in Key West, and it's definitely one of those stories I can not tell those who ask about our trip. It would be cool if we had the same experience there we had every where else & basically became family with everyone there, but that lady is the complete opposite of welcoming and hospitable as a welcoming face of the business, Im hoping no one else has ever experienced that because it was so uncomfortable...

Second time coming here. First the good: You can smoke cigars inside. They have decents music at times. Our waitress was very nice. Bad: Bar staff was borderline rude and unfriendly. The woman with afro (security) at door was unnecessarily rude. Ironically, their was a drunk idiot sitting next to said "security". He was screaming profanities and beating his hands violently on the table. He had a huge water bottle that he kept slamming on the table. The guy he was talking to walked out (probably embarrassed). The angry guy kept cursing. When I say he was screaming ... he drowned out the musician he was so loud. The table next to me asked security (woman with afro) to do something about it and she wouldn't. Two tables got up and left because the guy was extremely disturbed and angry. When my wife and I (after spending $300) tried to exit ... the supposed security woman yelled at us. She phyiscally blocked the door and pointed towards the other door (while yelling at us). Good thing she took charge of this simple task while allowing someone else to terrorize the entire bar. I'm sure owners don't care as Duvall is extremely busy with toursist and cruise ships. They have no real incentive to run a decent business with a plethora of fresh people...