TD's Orlando by UCF

TD's Sports Bar & Grille, a former Don Pablo's, morphs from sports bar to dance club later in the evenings.

TD's Sports Bar & Grille may want to enforce a more rigorous bartender-training program. When I stopped by earlier this week, my fianc? and I stumped the bartender ordering a Michelob Ultra and a rum and Coke.

That was once we got a bartender to tend to us. We sat at the bar for a good 10 minutes before we received any service. And that only happened after I asked the guy behind the bar if he indeed was a bartender. After looking around, and some hemming and hawing, he admitted he was.

I can't really blame him -- it was obvious this was his first time slinging bottles. He and the rest of the staff looked as though Peter Pan's Lost Boys had exercised squatter's rights at the former Don Pablo's on University Boulevard. I don't think anyone working was over the age of 22. If you're not paying the $7 for ladies and $10 for men at the door for the "all-you-can-drink" special on Monday nights, their heads are spinning. In fact, he asked us if we actually came through the front door -- he couldn't get over the fact we didn't have the "all-you-can-drink" wristbands.

Since drinking Bud from a bucket is no longer my idea of a good time, and the Schnapps concoctions I saw them doling out also didn't suit my oh-so-elite palate, I decided to save myself four bucks.

I need to stress that this a UCF bar, so I am not the target customer. And it's quite successful with the patrons it attracts. For a Monday night, the place had a sizable crowd by 10 p.m. -- considering it's a former Don Pablo's, you know there is a lot of space for a crowd to form. The bar is where it was always, facing you when you walk in, but the dining tables have been replaced with pool tables. Booths still line the side of the front wall, and tables are scattered toward the rear, where there is a large stage. The DJ was setting up when I got there; later in the evening TD's trades its sports bar status in for dance club until 2 a.m.

A cigarette machine is present, but there is no smoking in the bar because they do serve a sizable menu, which included everything from appies to burgers. Since it's a sports bar, you can catch your game of choice from almost any angle, and if your team is losing you can find Zen staring at the water feature in the middle of the pool tables (I'm assuming a leftover from Mr. Pablo's place).

After finishing our drinks and amusing ourselves with the fact there was actually a Cleveland Browns fan in the bar, screaming and yelling for her team (that is until we saw the Giants were actually losing to them), we decided to head out. We weren't committing our livers to never-ending buckets, and our teams weren't playing, so there really wasn't any other reason to stick around.

If a frat house decided to open a business based on its weekend activities, TD's would be that place. They have the audience; they just need to make sure their staff knows how to do more than hoist rookie juice buckets all of the time.

Kelly Fitzpatrick can be reached at 407-420-5710. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it