February 29, 2008 - Today only comes along every 4 years or so (Feb 29th, that is, or Leap Day), so it should have been pretty special, right? Well, I guess to celebrate the day, Ellie and I and Mike went to Ybor City at night to eat dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse. They served up way too much food. It was very tasty. I had some of their great fresh bread, bruschetta, a salad, and lasagna. Mike had all that plus some dessert. Ellie had the spaghetti and meatballs (in honor of their website, www.meatballs.com). We did some walking around Ybor City after dinner, since Mike has never been there for anything before. We stopped in the Blue Shark, where Sean Brown was playing with his group. He is just an amazing musician. He's got an electric piano, a keyboard, and an organ all set up, and he effortlessly goes back and forth between them, not needing to even look at the keys to make sure his hands are in the right place. His group was tight and full, even though it was only 4 of them, producing a sound of a 8 piece group. We had just finished dinner when we went in there, and the bartender came by once asking us if we wanted drinks. I said we were good because I was quite full. The second time, they come up to Mike and say "the owner doesn't like people just standing around in here". So we left. But here's my beef with the situation. The Blue Shark used to pack the house when it was further up on 7th. It's been in its new location for about a year, and struggles to even fill all the seats at the bar. Here I am, a group of 3 people, listening to the music, and helping them look like more people are in the bar (more people in the bar draws more people, it makes it look like something good is going on), and they tell us (basically) get some drinks or get out. Now I understand that the bar is in business to make money, not to provide free concerts. But they should re-think their strategy on drawing a crowd. If all you care about is people buying drinks (which apparently they do), then you are going to miss out on big crowds because not everyone wants to drink. They need to find a way to make money off the good music they have. As far as I know, they are the only club in Ybor that has live music that is not pop/rock covers. Sure, it is a cover bar, but it is more towards the blues and soul side of the musical spectrum. Why not charge a cover of $3 a person and keep the people who are there just for the music in the bar? I could understand if they had a line out the door, that they would want to limit the bar to just drinking customers, but they don't have that luxury. Until they build up a crowd, they need to take their patrons where they can get it. A $3 cover would be about the same profit as they would get from the 1 drink that I would buy if I really wanted to stick around and hear the music, which would keep them happy, and would be low enough that I would be willing to pay it. Plus, if I pay a $3 cover, I am more likely to stay in the bar because I had to pay to get in. If I've been there for an hour, the food might have settled in my stomach, and I could have been a customer buying drinks. But instead, they sent us away because at that moment we weren't ready to buy drinks.