The Tutu Bar Takes a Bow

A few years ago, 22&Co., widely known as the tutu bar, marked the numerical significance and novelty of 2022 with an early-year celebration that doubled as something more meaningful: one of the bar’s first real public gatherings after the unpredictable and tumultuous pandemic years.

The Year of the Tiger offered an appropriately flamboyant motif for a place already populated with cat prints, unicorns, glitter, and the sort of followers who tended to show up in extravagant dress, festival or not.

Four years later, and seven years after "22" first opened in 2019, the bar found itself presiding over another moment it could not have foretold: a hiatus.

In true tutu fashion, the business' leader Jenn Stefanacci Portier and her small crew of devoted bartenders, turned what could have resembled a somber occasion into something much closer to a party. The final day combined the practical business of clearing shelves and stock with a quintessential Key West scene, as longtime patrons and islanders who heard the call packed the tiny Angela Street spot in numbers comparable to some of its busiest nights of the year.

On August 3, the bar issued a statement that it would soon take a brief pause as it worked through "administrative matters behind the scenes."

"This isn’t goodbye," the statement read, "just a brief intermission before the next act."

The bar promised it would be back. Where, when, and under what circumstances remain unanswered as 22’s pause arrived amid the same turbulent summer that abruptly shuttered Aqua’s longtime Duval Street operation and, more recently, The Birdcage Cabaret.

Court records revealed an ongoing dispute involving the alcoholic-beverage license associated with the businesses, though it remains unclear how much that dispute played any role in 22&Co.’s pause.

Whether any of that ultimately determines the business' future remains unclear. But even a pause would still require something of a sendoff. The once nascent bar that capitalized on the pandemic vibe shift of downtown Duval and changing consumer demands turbo-charged its "final" day in a manner than screamed more fun than funeral.

With no reopening date announced, 22&Co., dramatically marked down much of what remained behind the bar. Beer and mixed drinks dropped to $2.22, unopened bottles of liquor went for $10, and merchandise (a surprisingly robust side business for the bar) was similarly steeply discounted.

The rock-bottom prices did contribute to some chaotic scenes shortly after opening. Customers crowded the bar to secure drinks and bottles, at one point leading to the momentary pause of the latter, as the bartender caught up with actual drink orders. The espresso martinis, among 22’s favorites, continued moving at their usual fast pace.

The lull that followed allowed the bar to get ready for another of its longstanding special practices.

Over the years, 22 dedicated itself to numerous charitable causes including raising tens of thousands of dollars for animal welfare, affordable housing, the LGBTQ+ community, and various local nonprofits. One of the most visible ways it achieved this was through its weekly drag bingo hosted by Qmitch.

The fashionable and irreverent local fixture transformed the intimate space into a raucous ball-busting affair as regulars and often bewildered passersby competed for bar tabs and very random prizes to support a different cause each month.

There would be no break from that tradition on this final Sunday.

Patrons settled in as a rhinestone-bespectacled Qmitch, aided by his longtime volunteer, zipped through straight-line bingo and eventually coverall. The grand prizes were as wonderfully random as ever: Outback Steakhouse vouchers, liquor, and T-shirts and hats bearing the bar’s signature pink branding and numerical styling.

Qmitch occasionally interrupted the loud proceedings to praise the evening’s bartender, Grace Simpson, and ended the show on an optimistic note. Otherwise, there was little outward mourning.

It was business as usual, or business as brisk as possible.

Customers continued asking when bottle sales would resume. Merchandise moved off hanging racks and eventually from mannequins as inventory dwindled. At one ear-splitting moment, repeated inquiries about shot glasses, which had never really been advertised as part of the fire sale, drew increasingly annoyed looks from people nearby.

As the streets outside darkened and the hour of an indefinite close drew nearer, the bottle barons and swag seekers gradually gave way to faces and tutu-skirted barstools that regulars would recognize. Service-industry workers, business owners, dog lovers, Fantasy Fest darlings, theater performers, musicians, downtown characters, and even one regular currently seeking a seat on the City Commission assumed their usual spots.

One sentiment repeated by staff and patrons throughout the evening was the sense of belonging 22 had created.

For some, this meant an intimate and colorful foothold in Key West’s grueling service industry, one Stefanacci Portier knew herself after her earliest days bartending in New Jersey and Florida before eventually launching 22.

For others, this place became the rare downtown bar where misfits, artists, creatives, serious drinkers, industry insiders, and cocktail obsessives could squeeze together and, above almost everything else, come as they were.

That combination made the possibility of losing this space feel much bigger than its modest but mighty square footage.

Late into the night, nobody seemed particularly interested in dwelling on that.

A former staff member and one of the bartenders climbed onto the glitter-dusted bar top and danced to Florence + the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over.”

Nearby sat a confetti cannon that had failed to detonate several hours earlier.

It hardly mattered.

By then, there was glitter all over the floor anyway.

Erin Funston contributed to photography