Enjoyable jazz at Chicago's Steak House

Mel Dancy, renown jazz vocalist and pianist, performed Monday night at the opening of Chicago's Steak House (3162 Commodore Plaza). Stop in for dinner and enjoyable live music.

Live music Happy Hour on Thursdays at Cabana One

Cabana One (atop the Mayfair Hotel) has a Poolside Summer Rescue R&R for service industry workers and their friends. The pool/lounge is open to the public daily from 10 am to 8 pm. And on Sundays, for service industry folks, there's food and drink specials.

There are pool games and a lunch menu. Daily Happy Hour drink specials include $2.00 drinks Monday thru Friday from 5 to 8 pm.

Thursday night is Miami's only after work pool party. There will be a "guest bartender" on Thursdays including an Acoustic Open Jam from 6 pm to midnight. $3 shorties for the industry, $75 Finlandia Bottles.

For reservations: 305-448-5088 or email Benji at benji@cabanaonelounge.com

IFE-ILE Afro-Cuban Dance Festival returns

The Arts and Minds Center (3138 Commodore Plaza) is again the host for the IFE-ILE Afro-Cuban Dance Festival from July 24 through 26.

The exciting dance and drumming workshops are conducted by experienced and renowned professional instructors: Neri Torres, Onye Ozuzu (University of Colorado), Augusto Soledade (FIU), Mestre Cavalo, Yosvany Gonzalez, Yanitzia Mizrahi, master drummers Ezequiel Torres and Dele Adefemi (Nigeria), performances with Miami premieres and parties with DJ Melao spinning Cuban Salsa.

Learn powerful movements hailing from Yoruba deities in the Orisha's master classes and the roots of Salsa. Embrace intricate footwork in Orisha dances, Son, Cha-cha-cha, Rumba, Conga, Mambo, Afro-Modern Dance, Capoeira, West African, Haitian dance and many more workshops. Those ranging from novice dance enthusiasts to professional dancers are invited to enjoy the party.

Reserve your space at http://www.ife-ile.org/festival.htm of for info: Email ifeiledancecompany@yahoo.com or call 305-476-0832.

The Gala Performance is on July 25 8:00 pm at the Teatro Abanico, Arts and Mind Center featuring Miami choreography premieres fro Neri Torres director of IFE-ILE Afro-Cuban Dance Company and guest artists Onye Ozuzu, Kat Gurley and Afua Hall. Tickets: $15, $12, available at www.ife-ile.org or at the theatre door.After party in the Arts and Mind Center patio featuring DJ Melao spinning Cuban Salsa.

"Overheard" on Twitter

Recently "overheard" on Twitter about Coconut Grove:

Sighted on Tiger Tail Avenue: Lone peacock, turquoise medallion head fathers. All alone. Coconut Grove.

Deal Alert - THE RITZ-CARLTON, COCONUTGROVE , Miami - Rates starting at $169 for a Deluxe Room ! www.ritzcarlton.com

Downtown Coconut Grove turning into a block party Saturday nights in July. Saw Saturday's party from a distance. Good idea.

Sitting outside at Green Street in Coconut Grove...just got pooped on by a pigeon! (Wondering if this is a 1st for Twitter)

Its midnight at coconutgrove- I'm thrilled to be here

headed to coconut grove... never seen so many cadillacs, bmws, mercedes, porsches and ferraris in one place (from a Tourist from Texas).

San luis obispo is coconut grove with mountains.

had an amazing time fishing way out in the ocean, caught a huge King Fish. resting before the beerpong tourney incoconut grove tonight

Shoot out in the Center Grove -- with cameras

Two Grove artist friends, Uta (left) and Audrey decided to have a shoot out recently.

They gave each other an hour to photograph a bunch of Coconut Grove scenes. They then took the images home to crop and prepare for some sort of contest.

I don't think anyone has seen the photos yet, but it would be cool to put them up here and see what they came up with.

Buying keywords for Coconut Grove

We mentioned that the BID is going to start buying keywords on search engines like Google, to drive traffic to the Grove and to their webiste.

I would suggest they not waste money on keywords like Coconut Grove itself, since basically everything that comes up when you type that in is the Chamber, the Bid and the Grapevine, so that's just paying for what already comes up.

Some suggestions for keywords would be:
fun vacations
fun holidays
small villages
village life
sailing village
sailing vacations
sailing community
arts community
arts festivals
and things like that. Any more you may suggestions for the BID?

Abuse of city powers needs to stop now

How do I get one of these free parking passes? Too many people who work for the city have them and they are never on official business. The other day, three lovely ladies pranced out of a BMW in the rain and went to lunch and then they went shopping. Was this on city time, were they doing city business? I don't think they were. Why did they get to park free?

Why are we, the public, stalked by the Parking Authority, even mother's picking up their children at school are stalked, but dozens, dare I say, hundreds of city workers park for free espcially in these tough economic times. The City has depleted more than $50 million in reserves. Let the City workers pay for parking too. It will help bring more money to the City coffers and when their meters are expired, they can pay for those tickets, too in the way of citations like the rest of us mere mortals.

Oh, and let them drive their own cars. We taxpayers are tired of paying for the very cars that are used to stalk and mock us. Give them an allowence for whatever they may use their real cars for, but take away these free cars. 90% of the time they are not used for city business.

Let's have a new rule; City employees have to park and pay at meters in their own cars and not on the sidewalk either.