There is a beam in the ceiling at Lost Boy Dry Goods with a sign on it reading La Epoca Warehouse, and it is not decoration bought at a flea market. This room on East Flagler Street was a clothing store when downtown Miami had a garment district, then a denim shop run by the same family, and the sign is left over from the business that was actually here. The retail operation closed in 2017. What opened in its place is a bar that runs from noon until three in the morning, and understanding the first part is what makes the second part interesting.
A bar with a hundred years of the same family's business in the ceiling is worth an unhurried visit. Ask Karpo when Lost Boy is quiet and what else on Flagler is worth seeing.
The family business that was here first
La Epoca began in Havana, run by the grandfather and great-uncle of Randy Alonso, who later co-founded this bar. The family came to Florida and started the business again in the duPont Building downtown.
Alonso and his brother tried to continue it, opening a boutique called Lost Boy Dry Goods in this space. By 2017 the retail landscape had shifted so far that the family closed both the department store and the two-year-old denim shop.
So the bar's name is the shop's name. That is unusual — most bars that trade on heritage borrowed it. This one inherited it, and the ceiling beam is the receipt.
What the bar actually is now
Alonso partnered with Chris Hudnall, who had worked from teenage busser to bartender to hotel manager and on to North American director of bars at Soho House. That pairing explains the room: family history plus a proper drinks operation.
The register is English pub crossed with saloon — classic cocktails, cold beer, fresh sandwiches, and a deliberate lack of ceremony. It is a neighbourhood bar in a part of Miami that had very few.
For wine specifically, treat it as a good bar with wine rather than a wine bar. If wine is the whole point of the evening, this is the wrong address; if you want to drink somewhere with actual history in it, it is one of the best in the city.
Noon to three in the morning
Hours run Monday to Saturday noon to 3am, and Sunday noon to 1am. That is a fifteen-hour day, six days a week, and it makes this one of the most useful addresses downtown.
The early opening is the underused half. Downtown Miami at two in the afternoon is an office and courthouse district with almost nowhere pleasant to sit, and this room is open with sandwiches on.
The 3am close is the other end of the same usefulness. Downtown empties early and closes early; this does not.
Where it sits, and the neighbourhood around it
157 East Flagler Street is in the historic commercial core, a few minutes from Bayfront Park and the Metromover, which is free and the sensible way to arrive.
Flagler Street is a working street of shopfronts and old cinema buildings rather than a nightlife strip, so the bar is a destination rather than one of a row. That is worth knowing before you arrive expecting somewhere else to go afterwards.
It is walking distance from the Brickell bridge, so an evening that starts here can move south easily if you want a second act.
Who this suits
Anyone interested in Miami as a city with a past rather than a set of new buildings. The story in this room is a Cuban family business twice over, which is downtown Miami's actual history rather than a themed version of it.
Anyone downtown in the afternoon who wants a proper drink and a sandwich, which is a surprisingly hard thing to find in that district.
Anyone out late enough that most of Miami has stopped serving. Between the noon opening and the 3am close there is very little of the day this bar does not cover.
Practical notes
Address: 157 East Flagler Street, Downtown Miami.
Hours: Monday to Saturday noon–3am; Sunday noon–1am.
Classic cocktails, beer, wine and sandwiches. The space was the family's La Epoca clothing store and later the Lost Boy Dry Goods denim shop, which closed in 2017; the original ceiling beam sign remains.
Tags: #Miami #DowntownMiami #LostBoyDryGoods #WineTastingNearMe #FlaglerStreet #CocktailBar #MiamiHistory #NeighborhoodBar #LateNight #MiamiDrinks #BarsAndNightsOut #LaEpoca
Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
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Ask Karpo first
Ask Karpo when Lost Boy is quietest, what to order beyond the cocktails, and what else in downtown Miami is worth walking to on the same afternoon.
