Typing "speakeasy near me" into a phone in MiMo used to return a bar that never actually hid anything. The Anderson had no password, no bookshelf door, no code word at the host stand — it earned the speakeasy label purely from mood, on the strength of a narrow, dim room built to feel found rather than designed. That mood is now history rather than an active listing, and anyone still typing the search into this stretch of NE 79th Street is asking about a format that outlived the business.
Ask Karpo before driving out to NE 79th Street for a bar that closed in 2024 — we can tell you what occupies that address now and which MiMo bars still lean into the same low-lit, small-room format.
The address that still surfaces first
Search engines still point to 709 NE 79th St in MiMo when someone nearby types this phrase, because for eight years the block was defined by The Anderson, a cocktail bar on the edge of the Upper East Side and Shorecrest that opened in 2016. It traded for years as the neighborhood's most reliable dim room: exposed brick, leather stools, a long bar kept intentionally shadowed, none of it dressed up as a gimmick.
Status matters before mood, though. The Anderson closed quietly in 2024, and by 2026 the space at that address had already been picked up by a different operator. Anyone searching the term today is really asking about a format that existed in this one room, not about a bar that can still be walked into tonight.
A piano bar's ghost under the paint
The address carries more history than its 2016 opening date suggests. Before Bar Lab's Gabe Orta and Elad Zvi, working with Jourdan Binder of Workshop Collective, converted the space, it operated as Magnum Lounge — described at the time as home to Miami's oldest bar, a legendary piano lounge that had outlasted several waves of neighborhood turnover. Chef Alex Chang was brought in for the reboot's food side, which gave the room a proper menu instead of just a back bar.
That layered history is part of why the space kept reading as a speakeasy long after the piano was gone. A room that has already been one thing for decades, then reopened as something moodier, carries an inherited weight that a brand-new build can't fake in a single year.
What made it feel hidden without hiding anything
The Anderson never installed a false door or a code word, and that restraint was the point. Its speakeasy reputation came entirely from the room itself — a narrow floor plan, deliberately shadowed lighting, exposed brick, leather stools along a long bar, and wallpaper-level ephemera (disco-ball glints, animal print, cigarette-ad nostalgia) that made the whole space read as a found room rather than a designed set.
- Walk-ins only; no reservations were taken
- Weeknights before 8pm gave the best odds of a bar seat
- Saturday after midnight ran into genuine late-night crowds
- No DJ and no bottle service, despite the nightlife-adjacent energy
- Cocktails ran roughly $15–18, small plates $8–14
- A back patio and an outdoor bar called The Shack offered a lighter, tropical counterpoint to the dark front room
Why the closure matters for anyone still searching
A closure that wasn't loudly announced leaves a gap between search results and reality that outlasts the lease itself. For a stretch after 2024, indexed writeups and old photos kept surfacing the leather stools and red-lit bar as though the doors were still open, because nothing forced those listings to update. By 2026, the address had been picked up by a different venue entirely.
This is the practical risk of chasing a phrase like this one to a specific pin on a map: the aesthetic that made a place feel like a speakeasy has nothing to do with whether the lease is current. Checking status before making the trip matters more on a street like this one than the atmosphere ever did.
The details that rarely made it into the writeups
The Anderson was built around a deliberate contrast: a dark, narrow indoor bar paired with a colorful tropical outdoor bar, The Shack, and a back patio strung with Edison bulbs and plantings. The split wasn't incidental — one mood answered the other, so a night could start moody and end outside without changing addresses.
The kitchen mattered more than the reputation suggested, too; the menu ran to small plates that included cool-ranch beef crackling, a detail that undercuts the idea of the place as pure atmosphere. And the crowd it drew — bartenders, chefs, creative-industry regulars — was a different clientele than a typical neighborhood dive attracts, even one dressed in the same red light.
Reading the phrase correctly in a MiMo context
In Miami, "speakeasy near me" mostly describes a look rather than a literal hidden door, and MiMo's version of that look sat opposite a boat dealer with luxury boats stacked three high — a reminder that this strip is closer to highway frontage than to a nightlife row. The Anderson's narrow, shadowed room worked precisely because it contrasted so hard with what was outside its door.
That contrast is a format, not a fixture, and formats survive even when specific rooms don't. The honest answer to the search, for now, is that the room which best matched it in this neighborhood is gone, and whatever has taken its place at 709 NE 79th St deserves to be judged on its own terms rather than inherited nostalgia.
Practical notes
The Anderson operated at 709 NE 79th St in MiMo, on the Upper East Side edge near Shorecrest, from 2016 until a quiet closure in 2024. It occupied the former Magnum Lounge space, a longtime piano bar address, and ran as a walk-ins-only cocktail bar with a narrow indoor room and a tropical patio and outdoor bar called The Shack. No confirmed current hours, phone number, or booking system exist for this address under new ownership, so treat any older listing showing open hours as outdated. If the goal is a comparable low-lit, small-room bar elsewhere in MiMo or the Upper East Side, check current status before setting out rather than relying on the old write-ups.
Tags: #SpeakeasyNearMe #MiMoMiami #MiamiBars #UpperEastSideMiami #CocktailBars #MiamiNightlife #BarHistory #ShorecrestMiami #HiddenBarsMiami #MiamiCocktails #NeighborhoodBars #MagnumLounge #BarLabMiami
Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Ask Karpo first
Ask Karpo whether 709 NE 79th St is currently operating under a new name before you plan a night around it, and ask for a short list of MiMo or Upper East Side bars that still match the narrow, low-lit, walk-ins-only format The Anderson used to define.
