For some at Elbo Room, Spring Break lasts forever

FORT LAUDERDALE For the regulars at the Elbo Room, it's like Spring Break lasts forever, and that iconic song by Connie Francis never ends.

If "Where the Boys Are" is a question, the answer is here — right at the end of the bar.

"Is there any better place in the world than right here?" said Steve Geissler, 50, who downed his first beer here in 1979, before his freshman year at New York Institute of Technology in his native Long Island. "Live music, the ocean right there, pretty girls. When I moved here 12 years ago, this was the only place I recognized. It's home."

This week, as the first wave of stressed-out young scholars fans out for alcohol-therapy sessions in Cancun, Panama Beach and Puerta Vallarta, the beaches where an annual college rite exploded will be largely ignored.

And that's just the way city officials and Broward County tourism chiefs want it. The days when up to 300,000 revelers, inspired by the 1960 movie, swung from the lampposts on A1A are long gone.

Yet some of the boys from earlier generations are still here.

Next to Geissler on Wednesday afternoon was a shirtless Eddy Perez, 39, who said he was just 10 when his older brothers dragged him along from their home in Miami. He wasn't drinking then, of course. "I think I had my first beer at 12," said Perez.

On Perez's right was John Fortino, 47, a Fort Lauderdale native who went to Florida State University, brought his friends home for Spring Break, and soon after graduation came home again to begin a career in real estate.

"This place just sucks you in," said Fortino of the city's oldest bar, which occupies a prime chunk of real estate at the corner of A1A and Las Olas Boulevard. "You can stand here and see the ocean, feel the breeze and watch all the tourists go by."

Owner Michele Penrod, whose family bought the Elbo Room in 1981, describes the bar as "flip-flop casual." And that is what Fortino, Geissler, Perez and a handful of other 4 p.m. regulars are wearing: T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops.

They are among a group of 15 to 20 men and a few women, mostly middle age or older, who have stayed connected to their younger selves by turning a famous Spring Break mecca into their neighborhood tavern.

"When I was younger, I was more like a tourist here," said Fortino, a real estate broker who takes a water taxi to the bar from his nearby condo. "Now this is a place where I go to relax with friends."

Opened in 1938, the Elbo Room sits less than 100 yards from the surf. The ocean breeze makes air conditioning unnecessary, and the second-story balcony is perfect for people-watching.

Patrons dressed in nothing more than bathing suits can cross the street for a plunge in the ocean and return 20 minutes later to find their drink on the bar where they left it.

Tourists do wander in, of course, often to revisit a memory they made while in college. Penrod said a middle-aged woman stopped by the other day and found herself in one of the vintage photos framed on the walls next to movie stills of Connie Francis and license plates from all over the world.

"We have never been tempted to change the place," said Penrod. "People do like to come back here and find what they remember."

One of those who dropped in this week for a beer and a shot of nostalgia was Christine Freund, 52, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, partied here as a teenager, and then moved to New York with her family.

Although far fewer people are on the streets outside, "this is the same atmosphere I remember," said Freund, who now lives in Sea Cliff, N.Y.

Freund had another reason to visit. Her son, Freddy, aka Fast Fingers Freddy, is one of the bar's regular entertainers, a singer-guitarist with a 200-song repertoire of rock, country and reggae tunes.

"I hear a lot of stories," said Freddy Freund, 31. "People walk in all the time and say they feel the same vibe they felt in the 70s."

The bar remains unchanged, except for bathrooms remodeled last year to comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The most recent remodeling before that: 1956.

For Geissler, the Elbo Room offers a daily flashback to the days when he and five friends piled into a white Dodge van and drove straight through to Fort Lauderdale in 24 hours. On that first trip, they parked the van right in front of the bar and slept inside.

"I call this place the church," said Geissler, a technology consultant. "This is my home."

Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

mwclary@tribune.com

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For some at Elbo Room, Spring Break lasts forever