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While I’ve been to Atlanta multiple times, this recent trip marked my first real trip to ATL proper.

My previous trips here were short work stints, usually the first stop in a two-city road show I would do a few times a year to test ad concepts and animatics (basically animated storyboards to give viewers a clearer idea of what the final product would look like) as part of the client representation. I’d get to Hartsfield-Jackson in the morning, take a cab to the facility, and depending on how much time I had, I’d find the closest grocery store to get some snacks and drinks and pay for a guest pass if there was a good gym nearby. Most of my time would be spent in a dark office, as often these groups wouldn’t finish until 9 or 10 PM, and then I’d head back to my hotel near the airport so I could get up early to fly to either Chicago or Dallas first thing the next day. The most I generally saw of any city would be from the window of a car.

As this was the first time I had the chance to spend time in Atlanta, after my husband and I dropped our bags at our downtown hotel, we took a rideshare up to Ponce City Market in order to get some food and take in the sights along Ponce de Leon Avenue. For a relatively short trip of only a few days, I managed to squeeze in a good amount--stay tuned!

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Behold: my favorite spot in Miami Beach: Sweet Liberty Drinks & Supply Company. I haven’t been here since last year, and since we weren’t staying near it I only made it here one time on this trip. 

While they still have some of their mainstay cocktails on the menu, I come here now to see what they’re up to now. The Oyster Martini--a new drink since my last visit a year ago--absolutely blew my mind because it tasted like an oyster without a touch of brine, and I was grateful to the bartender who explained how he infused the gin with the fresh horseradish, and I kind of want to make a white pepper tincture in my iSi to mess around with my own martinis. It’s only available on the happy hour menu--available from 4-8PM daily--and that happens to be my favorite time to be here.

I had some of their baked oysters on the HH menu as a snack while I waited for M to try to get some work done across the street, and they were really good, but I think I’ll stick to raw next time as Miami Beach is too hot normally to eat broiled oysters.

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More shots along Washington Ave (top two) and the road in front of the south entrance of the Miami Beach Convention Center (bottom two).

In all seriousness, though, I want to see a modern Mansfield Park movie set at this particular hotel, because it’s as clear as day when I see it in front of me like this.

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I love Mac’s Club Deuce, but nothing made me feel the reality of tariffs and inflation like our most recent time we were there and the drinks were Lilliputian in size. At least we still have the lovely neon. 

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Scenes near and on Española Way, Miami Beach, April 2025. 

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Rainbow crosswalks honoring the LGBTQ+ community are always lovely to see, but the history of this particular one is extra-special. It was installed in 2018 to honor the work of Leonard Horowitz, a gay furniture designer who worked with Barbara Baer Capitman to preserve the many Art Deco buildings that I obsess over and specifically brought the color palette that has become The Palette of the Art Deco Historic District. 

Miami Beach in the 70s and 80s was not the glamorous place it is today; it was seedy and the gorgeous Art Deco architecture that is beloved today was in disrepair. Barbara Capitman and Leonard Horowitz created the Miami Design Preservation League to preserve as much of this architectural history as possible, and I’ve used their website as a resource a lot because it’s the richest on this particular subject. Leonard Horowoitz in particular was the one who pushed for repainting the mostly-white facades into candy colors to give them all new life, and the colors you see in the crosswalk are the colors that were in his color palette. 

Leonard Horowitz died in 1989 due to complications from AIDS, and in the subsequent year Palace Bar was founded as the first and only LGBTQ+ bar on Ocean Drive. Per the Atlas Obscura article cited above, they would paint their curbs in rainbow colors to show that they were a safe space, and in 2018, this crosswalk became a permanent signal to that and as an honorific to the man whose eye and vision helped bring this historic area back to life. 

In a time where there is so much backlash to anything related to the queer community here in the United States, talking about why this part of Miami Beach is so beloved and so beautiful feels extra-important this time around knowing that a gay man had the vision to make it pop and he worked with Ms. art Capitman and a band of activists to preserve these buildings. I celebrate these buildings to honor their work.

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The Webster and the Marlin Hotel at night, April 2025.

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The Essex House spire also looks amazing at night. 

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Look how beautiful the Tiffany spire looks lit up at night!

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A little injection of mid-century modern in the Art Deco Historic District.

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The Tiffany Hotel building is currently home to The Tony Hotel South Beach, renamed in 2022 from the Hotel of South Beach in honor of developer Tony Goldman who was instrumental in helping to rehabilitate and preserve a number of South Beach buildings in the 80s and 90s. In addition to preserving the building itself, the Tony Hotel also brought back News Cafe, an Ocean Drive cafe that Gianni Versace frequented on a regular basis.

Despite the name changes over the years, the Tiffany spire remains in place, and in just a few hours, I was going to see it in all of its neon-lit glory.

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Essex House is considered one of architect Henry Hohauser’s best designs, and it really does look like a ship between the curved lines of the buildings and of course the porthole windows. (Related: I wish we could have porthole windows be a thing again in architecture, because we desperately need more whimsy in our collective lives.)

Something I learned from reading the article linked above was that Essex House, much like many of the hotels built during that time, had subtle arrows laid into the mosaics on the floor that would point you to the super-secret casino that was hidden in the building, so I’m going to try to take a peek at the lobby the next time I’m in the area.

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Now we’re switching over to some Art Deco gems along Collins Ave, starting with two that are right down the street from each other: The Webster and The Marlin Hotel. The Webster used to be a hotel, but it now serves as the flagship location of a luxury boutique, which…kind of makes sense? Meanwhile, the Marlin is still a hotel, and apparently has an in-house recording studio per their website, which is hilarious.

Both of them have absolutely excellent signs, especially at night, and I’ll be showcasing them in a later post.

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The Miami Beach Post Office is such a cool building, and while Time Out notes it as one of the big Art Deco buildings not to miss, it technically falls under the Arte Moderne style, which is similar to Art Deco only it has more of an emphasis on the horizontal versus the vertical. 

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On Española Way between Collins and Washington Ave, I was able to see “Sundial Spectrum” by Jen Stark, a Miami-born visual artist whose work is part of the Elevate Española public art program. Per the Miami Design Preservation League’s website this was slated to only last until early February, but as of April 2025 it was still up, perhaps due to the locals embracing it. As someone who loves color, I thought these bursts of it gave so much life to an otherwise fairly quiet stretch of South Beach.

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Right around the corner from Mac’s Club Deuce (aka The Deuce) is Il Pizzaiolo, a newish Italian restaurant specializing in traditional Neapolitan-style pizzas. When doing my research for this trip this popped up among the best newer restaurants in the area, so I had it on my must-visit list. Founded by a group of Neapolitans, they mainly focus on making great pizza, but also have some pastas and some really good-looking appetizers on the menu too.

I found the decor to be charming, but then again, I will forgive anything if it means the food is good. All of the blue and white definitely put me in a good mood after walking outside in the sun all morning, so I was ready to eat.

For lunch, my interest was piqued by the Pizza Prevola e Pepe, made with a smoked Provola d'Agerola cheese along with pecorino cheese and a San Marzano tomato sauce. Eating this pizza was like eating a savory cloud, because the dough was so light and fluffy and it practically melted in my mouth with each bite. It was the best pizza I’ve had in ages, and I will scream bloody murder if they don’t end up on the Top 50 Pizza US list for 2025 at the end of the month because it’s seriously on par with any of the other Neapolitan-style pizzerias in the US that I’ve visited on these lists. 

I took my husband there on our last night in town because my waiter had given me a little discount coupon, and he ended up choosing the Pizza Pomo d’Oro which had the same Provola d'Agerola cheese, mozzarella di bufala, and yellow cherry tomatoes rather than the San Marzano-style sauce. 

Meanwhile, I wanted to give one of their pastas a try, and few dishes reveal the skill in cooking pasta perfectly like making an aglio e olio sauce. I was promised creamy garlic and a nice hit of crushed red pepper and some breadcrumbs, and it lived up to the hype. 

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There have been a host of interesting businesses that have operated at 1450 Collins Ave, from two delis to several clubs, and eventually a Señor Frog’s. The latter closed in 2020 due to COVID and never reopened, but I was happy to see that the building is now open again--while the Señor Frog’s sign is still there, the building itself now houses a resort wear store, so I was really excited to finally get a peek inside!

I didn’t want to be obnoxious with my picture-taking so I only snapped a few, but look at all of these beautiful details! I’m so glad that this building is open again with so much of its historical character intact.