I’ve sunk into a comfy chair, reading an old spy novel. There’s Fat Possum blues on the radio. On my second drink, I switch from beer to wine with my glass resting on the end table beside me. A big dog rests underneath the coffee table in front of me and the rich smell of the humidor across the room fills the air.
This is Nora’s Sugar Shack, 636 Virginia Dr., Orlando. It isn’t just a funky converted house serving beer, wine and cigars; it’s more like an extension of one’s own living room.
“Everyone loves coming here because they love getting hugs,” says owner Nora Brooker. “Even people who say they’ve never liked hugs, they say they love getting them now.”
For the month of November, I am using this space to reflect on the parts of Orlando and Central Florida that make me the most thankful. This kitschy little hangout where you get a personal greeting from the owner and a quality recommendation on whatever you’re looking to drink is the kind of place I miss when I’m out of town.
Nora’s has been around for nearly 15 years. She spent 10 years in her original location at the west end of Virginia Drive as Nora’s Ivanhoe Wine & Cigars. She resettled herself just down the road over four years ago now.
The place may look lived in, but it’s not Brooker’s actual house. “Why did I open a bar?” she asks. “To get people the [expletive] out of my house.”
Brooker, 53, started out as a beer distributor in town, selling suds to some of the classic Orlando bars such as Go Lounge and the Kit Kat Club. When she opened her own place, she included cigars because her grandfather smoked them. “They’re kinda fun and they’re sexy,” she says.
Her dogs roam the bar, three of them most of the time. She brings them from home. They don’t pay much attention to the customers, just laze about their day.
I don’t get over to Nora’s as often as I would like, partially because of the hours. Friday is the only night she’s open until 11 p.m. Most days the place is only open until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. “I’m not a bar,” she says. “I’m a package store.”
But that doesn’t chase people away from the patio, who come for the pop-up art shows on the second Wednesdays of the month, or the wings or the burgers on the other Wednesdays. You have to check her Facebook page for all the details.
“I don’t do it for the money,” she says. “It doesn’t make money. I do it because I love it.”
It’s the same thing that brings me back.
