Melissa Donovan
After six years of serving hauntingly delicious cocktails and an eerie atmosphere, beloved downtown Orlando bar Cocktails and Screams announced on Wednesday they will be closing their doors on March 20.
“But even the best ghost stories face forces they can’t outrun. Downtown Orlando has changed. Nightlife traffic has faded, and the increasing fees and regulatory costs imposed by the City of Orlando have become impossible for small, independent venues like ours to survive,” the Halloween-themed bar wrote on social media. “Places like ours gave downtown its soul. The strange corners, the creative chaos, the spaces where people could escape reality for a night. And one by one, those places are vanishing into the dark.”
The business continued to say they plan on having the last few weeks of operation be celebrated “loud, haunted, and surrounded by the community that made these last six years legendary.” Their “farewell tour hours” will run from 7 p.m.-2 a.m. now through March 20, with closures on March 15 and 16.
Cocktails and Screams joins a growing list of downtown Orlando go-to nightlife spots closing due to recent restrictions. Since Feb. 1, downtown Orlando venues with After Midnight Alcohol Sales permits have been required to pay lump sum fees to serve alcohol after midnight. Some past downtown Orlando nightlife venue owners credit these fees associated with the city’s program as the reason for closure.
Other bars forced to close in recent years include 1UP Orlando, HighT Orlando, Dapper Duck, Ember, Arena Art Bar, Shorts, Chillers, Irish Shannon’s Cahoots, High Tide, and, most recently, Tanqueray’s.
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