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Actor Michael Cudlitz to Host Fireside Chats at Luxury Speakeasy, Red Phone Booth, in Atlanta, Dallas and Miami

Actor Michael Cudlitz to Host Fireside Chats at Luxury Speakeasy, Red Phone Booth, in Atlanta, Dallas and Miami

Exclusive Three-Night Event Series Featuring Rare Meet-and-Greets, Craft Cocktails and Curated Cigars with Star of The Walking Dead and Band of Brothers
'I'm thrilled to share stories, cigars and memorable moments at these special events.'— Michael Cudlitz
ATLANTA, GA, UNITED STATES, May 14, 2025 / EINPresswire.com / -- Red Phone Booth, the acclaimed Prohibition-era speakeasy renowned globally for exceptional craft cocktails and premium experiences, proudly announces an exclusive three-night VIP series with actor, director, and producer Michael Cudlitz, May 20 - 22, 2025. Best known for unforgettable roles in The Walking Dead, Band of Brothers, Southland and Superman & Lois, Cudlitz will personally host intimate fireside chat evenings at three select Red Phone Booth locations:
• Tuesday, May 20: Buckhead (Atlanta, GA)
• Wednesday, May 21: Brickell (Miami, FL)
• Thursday, May 22: The Colony (Dallas, TX)
These exclusive, members-only evenings begin with private fireside chats featuring curated cocktails paired with personal behind-the-scenes stories from his remarkable film and television career. At 8:00 p.m. each evening, doors open to the public for rare meet-and-greet opportunities with the acclaimed actor, allowing fans a unique chance to connect with Cudlitz in one of America's most sophisticated speakeasy atmospheres.
A longtime patron and enthusiast, Michael Cudlitz became an investor after Red Phone Booth emerged as one of his favorite destinations while filming in Atlanta. He will also appear on the upcoming cover of Cigar Aficionado Magazine.
'Red Phone Booth quickly became one of my favorite places during my time filming The Walking Dead in Atlanta — fantastic people, exceptional cocktails, and an unmatched atmosphere,' said Michael Cudlitz. 'I'm thrilled to share stories, cigars and memorable moments at these special events.'
Red Phone Booth sets the industry standard for elegant ambiance, expertly handcrafted cocktails and premium hospitality. Known for exclusive, memorable experiences, these intimate VIP evenings underscore Red Phone Booth's commitment to delivering extraordinary guest experiences in sophisticated settings.
'This is more than a celebrity appearance — it's an intimate, unforgettable evening that offers guests unparalleled access to one of television and film's most respected talents,' said Stephen de Haan, Founder of Red Phone Booth. 'Michael's passion and appreciation for our unique venues create a perfect synergy that elevates these exclusive events.'
Red Phone Booth continually strives to exceed guest expectations, focusing on meticulous details from seating comfort and staff expertise to premium air quality, creating a truly exceptional luxury experience.
NOTE: This is a 21 and over event. Appropriate dress code will be in effect. Public password at the door for this event will be 'Aficionado.'
ABOUT RED PHONE BOOTH:
Red Phone Booth is a luxury speakeasy concept featuring an interior reminiscent of an exclusive, clandestine hideaway, with vintage-inspired décor, plush seating, and dimly lit ambiance, creating an atmosphere of timeless elegance.
Known for its world-class mixology program curated by expert bartenders, Red Phone Booth boasts an extensive selection of 400+ spirits, including rare bourbon, whiskey, scotch, tequila, and premium Japanese whisky. Exceptional cocktails crafted from 100% fresh-squeezed juices — including lemon, lime, orange, pineapple, and cranberry — complement an extensive collection of 200+ products maintained in a temperature and humidity-controlled walk-in humidor.
Access to this unique Prohibition-inspired lounge is through a restored antique London red phone booth, requiring a secret phone number obtained via membership or hotel concierges, offering an unparalleled, memorable experience.
For more information about the event and Red Phone Booth's dress code, please visit www.RedPhoneBooth.com.
See full press release here: https://conta.cc/4iZaRWj
Tresa Halbrooks
LEGACY PR
[email protected]
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
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Restaurant news: Cerdito Muerto, a cocktail bar and Mexican American kitchen, transforms an old family home in Pilsen
Restaurant news: Cerdito Muerto, a cocktail bar and Mexican American kitchen, transforms an old family home in Pilsen

Chicago Tribune

time6 hours ago

  • Chicago Tribune

Restaurant news: Cerdito Muerto, a cocktail bar and Mexican American kitchen, transforms an old family home in Pilsen

Cerdito Muerto, a speakeasy-style cocktail bar with a contemporary Mexican American kitchen that's transformed an old family home that survived the Great Chicago Fire, opened in Pilsen on June 26. The name translates in Spanish to 'the dead piglet,' but is meant in a playful way, said Emidio Oceguera, owner of the debut business. 'Being a first-generation Mexican American son of farmers and ranchers, pigs and piglets are pretty endearing in our culture,' said Oceguera. The space was his mother Consuelo Oceguera's restaurant, Tacos Palacio, and his late father Miguel Oceguera's neighborhood pool hall. 'Even to this day, my partner calls me Piggy, so Piggy and piglets have always been kind of part of my identity,' he said. His wife and business partner Sarah Dickerson is their head of marketing and brand development. Speakeasies were sometimes known as blind pigs or blind tigers or striped pigs during Prohibition, as a front for illegal bars that would charge admission to see fictional animal curiosities, then offer a free drink. Hence the curious dead piglet, or cerdito muerto. 'This has a very speakeasy feel to it,' said Oceguera, who was general manager at Chicago Cut Steakhouse for a decade. 'But I do not advertise myself as a speakeasy.' In fact, when asked about the best-selling items so far, he mentioned the food program that's constantly changing under chef Becky Carson, previously the opening executive chef at the reimagined Ramova Grill and Taproom. Carson has brought a branzino to the menu, with chimichurri, citrus and fresh oregano. 'But (the menu) does have a few of my mother's staples,' said Oceguera. That includes a goat birria taco from her rural hometown in Jalisco, Mexico. 'It's no frills, there's no cheese,' he said, clarifying that theirs is decidedly not like the relatively recent quesabirria taco. 'It's just the way it was meant to be eaten, as if you were in a pasture.' They've also kept Mamà Coco's al pastor taco, but that's not traditional, he added, and eats almost like cochinita pibil instead. Rachele Byrd-Townsell, previously beverage director at Pizza Lobo, and Guillermo Martinez, bar manager at Estereo, were both beverage consultants. A classic Saturn cocktail, mixed with gin and passionfruit, has emerged as an early fan favorite. Their variation on the Paloma has become another popular drink. 'We named it Guillermo's Palomo, because we make our own 'Squirt' in house,' said Oceguera. The grapefruit-flavored soft drink is a common mixer in the cocktail. Mexican Squirt is as prized as Mexican Coke, made with cane sugar, not high fructose corn syrup. Both are available among the bar's non-alcoholic drinks. 'It is so imperative that I do not cheat on any ingredient, because every seat counts for me, so every experience is crucial,' Oceguera said. His experience with the space runs deep. According to his research, the building was built in 1853, originally as a house, eventually with a barber shop. His father emigrated from Mexico in 1973, and he rented a cot in the basement from a family friend. 'After some time, he was able to get on his feet, moved out and met my mother here in Chicago,' he said. 'Ten years later, in 1983, they purchased this building from that family friend.' The elder Oceguera came from a small ranching town, where shooting pool was their pastime. 'My dad was really good at pool, but not a gambling man, so he made it a pool hall,' said the younger Oceguera. 'And my mom started selling menudo on Sundays to the young men.' The pop-up precursor turned into a pretty good business so they got rid of one of the pool tables. 'And my father made a little kitchen for my mother in the front,' said their son. That became a tiny taqueria with five stools, and the pool hall stayed in the back. After Oceguera received a grant from the city's Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Road to Recovery Plan for communities most impacted by the pandemic, they closed Tacos Palacio in 2022. That grant allowed him to execute the renovation at a high level, he said, which was a labor of love. But he lost count of the number of times, he said laughing, that he was crying in the basement in the fetal position asking, 'When is this gonna happen? Why isn't the permit here? Why is construction taking so long?' Now, when you walk up to the building, you'll see that it's been restored as close to period correct as possible on the outside. But you won't find a sign. You'll enter through an 1800s courthouse door from Maywood, which he refinished and painted black. Inside, past an old family photo of goats in Mexico, down a corridor laid with classic penny tiles, you're greeted at a restored lectern with their reservation book. 'We're not using a reservation system,' he said. 'We're just doing it old school and writing your name down.' You can call, text, email or just walk in. There are no pool tables in the small space, which has a capacity of only 30 or so, but there are mementos. 'There's a photo of my father taken around the time he got here, shooting pool at a bar that wasn't far from here,' said Oceguera. 'So it's almost like an ofrenda.' And there's a rack with 10 or so pool cues, which all belonged to people who are no longer here. An open kitchen honors how his mother worked, he said. A booth runs the span of the room, with a 12-seat bar to the right, which he built himself. The seating was designed to some unusual specifications. 'I built the space with women in mind,' said Oceguera. The bar is two inches lower than the standard height, and the booth allows diners to touch the floor. 'I'm not a tall man, so sometimes my feet go kicking as well.' First and foremost, he said, Cerdito Muerto is a safe space. 'I really built the space to be inclusive and inviting,' he added. He's also focused on working with minority-owned and women-led businesses. From designer Aida Napoles of AGN Design, to Cristina Gallo and her husband Marty Sandberg of Via Chicago Architects + Diseñadores, as well as producers of the primarily Mexican-made spirits at the bar. Has his mother experienced the transformed space yet? 'Oh yeah, if you're lucky enough, you might see her. She loves talking with people,' said Oceguera. 'It's just nice to see my mother, in her 70s, being able to see something of a retirement.' His father, who died in his mid-50s in 2013, never retired. His mother was looking at a completely full room at 11:30 on a recent Saturday night. 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Outies can order breakfast sandwiches from Honeybell Bakery, poke bowls from Jōzu, gyros, greens and grains from Broadfork, with more to Cafe From the minds behind Mirra, Lilac Tiger and Coach House, including 'Top Chef' contestant Zubair Mohajir, pastry chef Reema Patel and chef Jacob Dela Cruz, comes the newest bakery with hourslong lines, this one with Indian and Filipino influences. Sarima Cafe began baking in Wicker Park on July 25. They're already selling out fast of their ube cheesecake cookies, but look for a breakfast dosa and a latte with dates Cheval Logan Square The Freeze, the dearly departed seasonal soft serve ice cream and fast food stand, has become a fast food restaurant. Small Cheval began flipping in Logan Square on July 14. 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The Violet Hour, the pioneering cocktail bar that opened in 2007 behind an ever-changing unmarked muraled facade in Wicker Park, closed permanently June 27 due 'unexpected damage to the building' and 'despite extensive efforts and negotiations' with their landlord. But it's not the end of the brand, which may reappear elsewhere.

Brain rot summer
Brain rot summer

Business Insider

time8 hours ago

  • Business Insider

Brain rot summer

We like to see ourselves as individual free thinkers. But when a hot summer trend hits — a style, a song, or even a meme — we can't resist wearing it, blasting it, and posting it. But what about this summer? It's August — schools are reopening, football is returning — and no big trend has taken hold. Summer 2025 feels squishy, undefinable, and chaotic. This season's most anticipated movies are all franchise revivals, like "Jurassic Park," "Superman," "Lilo & Stitch," and the "Fantastic Four." Netflix just set a record for biggest opening of any in-house film: the sequel to the 1996 classic "Happy Gilmore." Where indelible songs of the summer have consistently broken through in years past — "It's Gonna Be Me" in 2000, "Gangnam Style" in 2012, "Espresso" in 2024 — this year lacks a clear winner. At this writing, "Ordinary" by YouTuber-turned-crooner Alex Warren is atop the Billboard Hot 100, a moody tune poised more for overuse as a wedding first dance than it is to be a poolside bop. The most hyped tour of the summer was Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, which promoted an album that dropped 16 months ago. "Should we be concerned that it's August in a week and so far the song of the summer is 'nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday '?" one TikToker asked, referencing the viral sound meme that uses the audio vacation ad from British company Jet2holidays. It has appeared in millions of videos to juxtapose a fun vacation melting down into disaster. Even fashion and visual aesthetic trends have come undone. 2024 was lime green Brat summer, 2023 was bubble gum pink thanks to Barbenheimer and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, Beyonce's "Renaissance" chrome shone in 2022. As Vogue recently noted, "There is almost always one color that dominates. That said, this season seems to be the exception to the rule. There wasn't one single shade that reigned supreme." Welcome to brain rot summer. 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"There's been this huge pattern of media fragmentation that's been going on for a very long time." Because more people stream music and TV, "the catalog becomes just as important as anything new," Penney says. Sequels are safer bets for Hollywood to make, and Spotify spins up personalized playlists that feature older songs. Popular content creators with podcasts or large social media followings may seem big, but they also filter us into smaller media bubbles. The privilege of crystallizing and spreading our trends to massive audiences used to rest with late-night hosts, but their influence is waning: Stephen Colbert performed the viral "Apple" dance to go along with the "Brat" song last summer, but this summer his show is facing cancellation. There's been this huge pattern of media fragmentation that's been going on for a very long time. Joel Penney The news cycle, also popular late-night fodder, is fast paced and relentless. President Donald Trump is dominating news headlines in ways few other politicians ever have, from speculation around what's in the Jeffrey Epstein files to how tariffs will affect the economy to his posts on Sydney Sweeney. "Trump takes up all of the oxygen," Penney says. That's been true since he took office for the first time, with a report from Harvard' Shorenstein Center finding Trump was the topic of 41 percent of all news stories, tripling the coverage of past presidents. "There's just so much Trump all the time in the news that it kind of becomes pop culture," leaving little room for other pop culture moments to reach escape velocity. The big summer trends are often driven by, or at least seized by, marketers. "Barbie" had a $150 million marketing budget, more than the budget for the movie itself, and it paid off: The movie earned nearly $1.5 billion globally. If today we don't have one pop princess or color reigning supreme, maybe it's just an off year when no major, resonating work dropped just as the weather warmed up. But it could be an indication that people are growing tired of the mainstream, and weary of their social feeds being driven by algorithms over people. "The brain rot is super real," says Andrew Roth, founder and CEO of the Gen Z-focused research firm DCDX. "This summer is almost an escape from all of that, where people are going offline." DJs are turning coffee shops into spaces to vibe. Friendship and IRL dating apps are becoming popular as young people shirk traditional swiping. The hottest item to buy this summer is a Labubu; a toy made for adults whose appeal lies part in childhood nostalgia, and part in the IRL anticipation of opening a box without knowing exactly what you'll get. "Niche passions in communities are rising up to be an escape from that mainstream narrative that's everywhere," Roth says. "It doesn't feel like everyone wants to be a part of the same Barbenheimer or Brat summer experience. It's more of an individualized, spontaneous one." Maybe after two summers with blockbuster trends, we're feeling burned out and relishing in a break from monoculture. Critics and consumers alike have been feeling like the 2020s are culturally shallow for years, and attitudes about our entertainment landscape are pessimistic. A 2024 YouGov poll found people were most likely to say the 2020s has the worst TV, sporting events, radio programming, music, fashion, and movies, compared to every other decade over the past century. These opinions could be more nostalgia-driven than honest (the 2020s have spurred a deluge of water-cooler talk around highly acclaimed television series like "Severance" and "Succession"), or they could capture the growing frustration with the massive amounts of content we now have to choose from, and the age-old adage that quantity does not trump quality. Trends have shorter lives in our world where short-form video and algorithms dictate who sees what. Brat summer was maybe not just the winner of 2024, but such a massive hit that it became the exception and dragged on for so long that Charli XCX had to declare it over herself. In April, she suggested a litany of artists who could take up the torch. None have. No forced marketing campaign has led to the mass proliferation of one style, song, or movie. So how will we remember the Summer of 2025? Will it be the Astronomer affair? The coupling up of "Love Island's" Nicolandria, or the very public breakup of Elon Musk and Trump? Maybe we'll all have different memories of what defined the season and what we watched and listened to this summer — a patchwork that reflects the chaos that summer brought.

xaviersobased Cleans Up Nice on Refined Six-Track EP, 'once more'
xaviersobased Cleans Up Nice on Refined Six-Track EP, 'once more'

Hypebeast

time20 hours ago

  • Hypebeast

xaviersobased Cleans Up Nice on Refined Six-Track EP, 'once more'

Summary Plugged into a myriad of hip hop subcultures for years now,xaviersobasedhas become one of the key faces behind powering the current underground scene. At just 21 years old, the New York City-born and bred rapper/producer now has a double-digit number of mixtapes, EPs, and albums under his belt, each one further fleshing out his distinct sound: a raw, pieced-together patchwork of different music subgenres ranging from jerk and cloud rap to pluggnb and even hyperpop, all the while still dripping in his Day 1, internet-era influence. Xavier's latest EP comes as a surprise drop; entitledonce more,the tape rounds out at just six tracks in total, with track two, 'fly,' featuring Backend on production, and tracks three and four – 'uncomfy' and 'worth it' – both featuring fellow pioneering underground voice from just a few states south,OsamaSon. Despiteonce morebeing a spur-of-the-moment drop, the project sounds more polished than Xavier's past endeavors. Still riddled with the same post-SoundCloud-era, self-made energy that got him to where he is today,once more'sproduction leans into sleek synth melodies and even expands Xavier's genre profile, infusing hazy shoegaze beats throughout. 'i love yall sm jus wanted to drop this ep rq before i announce tht im in album mode rn,' the rapper shared via socials. 'ion want yall to think that im on some mysterious sh*t still gon b an active summer we activee.' 1. she omd onna low2. fly (feat. Backend)3. uncomfy (feat. OsamaSon)4. worth it (feat. OsamaSon)5. red snapper6. ion kno Streamonce more– out on all streaming services now.

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