There is a corner at Northeast 79th Street in Miami that has been pouring drinks since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Upper Eastside Hangout, an open-air food and cocktail garden, opened in August at 701 NE 79th St. and brought one of the city's oldest continuously operating liquor licenses back to life. The same license has been attached to that patch of Little River since 1937 — nearly 90 years.
One License, 89 Years
For decades the corner belonged to Magnum Lounge, a piano bar with a devoted local following. In 2016, Bar Lab cofounders Gabe Orta and Elad Zvi reopened it as the Anderson, an '80s-inspired cocktail bar named for Hugh Anderson, the developer who helped build the Venetian Causeway. Restaurateur Ken Lyon bought the Anderson in 2019, and the bar closed in 2024. The corner sat dark until four neighbors decided to do something about it.
Travis Rogers, John Fortini, Anthony Mejia, and Victor Ramos formed All We Need Hospitality Group and reopened the property as Upper Eastside Hangout. All four live in the neighborhood. "We live in the area, and we know this has been missing for a while now," Rogers said. "The corner sat empty long enough," Mejia added. "We're here because we live here. We saw what was missing, and we wanted to be the ones to build it."
Miami's Smallest Cocktail Bar
The courtyard holds more than 250 guests across picnic tables, high-tops, and kid-size picnic tables, with green turf underfoot and cream shade sails strung with lights overhead. Big LED screens run game days and movie nights, and cornhole boards and a foosball table round out the lawn. Down a palm-lined path sits the Original Bar Shack, a coral-and-green striped mini-house the group bills as "Miami's smallest cocktail bar" — 15 seats inside 200 square feet.
The courtyard: open-air, family-friendly, and dog-friendly, with lawn games and big screens.
The Bar Shack: tropical leaf-print wallpaper, brass palm sconces, and amber lighting — moodier than the sunny lawn outside.
The vibe: picnic tables and string lights, built for an afternoon that has no reason to end.
Florida-Grown Cocktails
The drinks are built on Florida-grown ingredients — datil peppers, muscadine grapes, and pecan infusions. The Florida Spritz mixes Ketel One Botanical peach and orange blossom with Munyon's Paw-Paw Liqueur, mint, lemon, grapefruit, hibiscus bitters, and prosecco. The Dade Runner is Sailor Jerry spiced rum with banana, blackberry liqueur, lime, pineapple ginger beer, and orange bitters.
Pricing is the other half of the draw. Beer is $5 at all times. Happy hour runs Tuesday through Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. with $5 mixed drinks, frozen cocktails, and wine; standard pricing runs $12 for mixed drinks, $15 for specialty cocktails, and $8 for wine.
Cheeseburger Baby Is Back on 79th Street
The food garden holds four stalls, and the headliner is a homecoming. Cheeseburger Baby, the South Beach burger institution that closed its Washington Avenue home after 25 years, has landed here — serving its Certified Angus beef burgers, the "Classic 15th S. Frita," chicken wings, and onion rings. Owner Stephanie Vitori called the closure "a transition" and promised big news was coming; the new spot also puts her back on a familiar street, where she ran a Cheeseburger Baby from 2015 to 2018.
Tacomiendo: street-style tacos built on Carlos' father's family recipes — birria tacos, tostones rellenos, and a churrasco sandwich. Taco Tuesdays mean $3 tacos and $5 margaritas all day.
Noodle Bar: hand-pulled noodles and dumplings made to order, its first permanent home after five years of pop-ups.
ProfessorSnacks: international snacks — mystery chip boxes, strawberry shortcake Kit Kats, cinnamon bun Oreos.
What's Next on the Property
Upper Eastside Hangout is the first of three concepts planned for the 17,000-square-foot property. Here to There, an interior lounge, is targeting a September opening, and In Between Wine Garden, a self-service wine spot, is set to follow later this year.
Plan Your Visit
Location: 701 NE 79th St., Miami, FL 33138 (Google Maps)
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, closed Monday; happy hour Tuesday–Friday, 2–6 p.m.
Phone: 561-579-0912
Instagram: @uppereastsidehangout
Pro tip: Go for happy hour (Tuesday–Friday, 2–6 p.m.) when beer and mixed drinks run $5, then stay for the string lights. Bring the dog — the lawn is built for it.
A Corner That Never Really Left
"We wanted the Upper Eastside to have a little bit of everything in one place, a spot to hang out for all," Rogers said. "We live in the area, and we know this has been missing for a while now." Nearly nine decades on, the corner is doing exactly what it was built to do — giving the neighborhood a reason to sit down, slow down, and stay a while.
Ready to Go?
Upper Eastside Hangout is open now at 701 NE 79th St. in Little River. Find it at uppereastsidehangout.com and follow @uppereastsidehangout for live music, movie nights, and pop-up schedules. #UpperEastsideHangout #MiamiEats #LittleRiver #CocktailGarden
