Every beach town has a bar or two that defines it — the place that stood through the hurricanes and the oil spills and the pandemics, where the sunburn is real and the music never quite stops. On Pensacola Beach, that place is Bamboo Willie’s Beachside Bar, founded in 1998 on the Pensacola Beach Boardwalk, facing the Intracoastal Waterway and its safe swimming waters.
Part-owner Robert Gleim opened Bamboo Willie’s with Larry Fox, who owns several notable Gulf Shores, Mobile and Pensacola Beach establishments. Gleim had worked with Fox in the hospitality and entertainment industry, with stops in Atlanta, West Palm Beach, Tampa and Miami, and had been introduced to Pensacola managing a Steak & Ale restaurant years earlier. When Larry approached him about opening a beach bar, he was ready.
“I guess I was raised as an adult here,” Gleim reflects. Twenty-seven years later, the bar he opened as a weekend live-music spot has grown into one of the landmark venues on the northern Gulf Coast.
From Weekend Bands to a Full Stage
Bamboo Willie’s began as a beachside bar with live music on Friday and Saturday nights. Today it offers a full bar with a view, 28 flavors of frozen daiquiris, bushwackers and four non-alcoholic frozen slushies for the kids. There is a T-dock where boats large and small tie up for a libation, and the band calendar runs nearly year-round — dialed back to weekends in winter, wide open from early spring through late fall. The venue has been voted the best beach bar for live music on the island.
Gleim, who booked the bands himself for years, tells a story that has become local legend. In 2010, a former Marine friend called and said he had six guys from New Orleans who were pretty good and should be booked. Gleim usually stuck to local acts, but he trusted his friend — who housed the band at his own house. The band was The Revivalists. “They got exposed here, and we brought them back several times,” Gleim says. “They ended up playing at Vinyl Music Hall in Pensacola and Soul Kitchen Music Hall in Mobile, and they blew up after that.”
The booking philosophy has expanded regionally since — acts like Pop Fiction from Jackson, Mississippi, and The Springs Band from Nashville — and the national stage has hosted the likes of Canaan Smith. What has never changed is the price of admission. Bamboo Willie’s has never charged a cover to hear live music. “We want to earn your business with a beautiful venue on the beach, open air, and outstanding bar service,” Gleim says.
Festivals on the Sand
Bamboo Willie’s has grown into a festival venue. Shortly after opening, Gleim helped launch the Pensacola Beach Crawfish Festival, a three-day family-friendly event each spring with a diverse lineup of local and regional music from rock and blues to Cajun and zydeco — 15 different acts through a typical weekend, with tons of crawfish boiled on site and activities for the kids. The festival marked its 26th annual edition at the bar, a run that has made it one of the island’s signature spring events.
The bar has also served as host venue for the Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival, which splits its week between downtown Pensacola and the beach, bringing working songwriters to intimate stages. Years earlier, Cat Country Radio and the CMA tapped Bamboo Willie’s to host the finale of a Bands on the Beach concert series with Canaan Smith as headliner. “We felt fortunate to be asked to be the host,” Gleim says.
The annual calendar rolls on: the End of Summer Pensacola Beach Elementary Bathtub Races on Labor Day weekend, with motorized tubs, three bands and fireworks; charity events like the AHERO Warrior Hook-Up Fishing Trip and the Chamber’s Art and Wine Festival; A Taste of Pensacola Beach at Casino Beach; and, every July, the Blue Angels Air Show, which Gleim calls the biggest event of the year. “Just to hear the roar of the jets as they race by. It never gets old!”
A Beach Town Grows Up
Gleim has watched Pensacola Beach transform over three decades. The growth has been positive, he says, but it has stressed the island’s infrastructure, which is why he supports the parking garage project and notes the moratorium on new hotels for anyone who doesn’t already own beach property. He cites reports that when the America’s Cup syndicate American Magic chose Pensacola as its home port, the region could see a billion dollars in economic investment.
With five military bases surrounding Pensacola, the beach and Gulf Breeze, the community has long been a bedroom for the military — and increasingly, a full-time hometown for everyone else. The Boardwalk itself, home to retail shops, restaurants and calm-water beaches, remains the anchor: free parking, free beach access, and a safe haven for swimmers when red flags fly on the Gulf side.
These days Gleim has eased back a bit. His right-hand, Alex Ortiz, started working the bar in high school and has been with him for 16 years. “She runs the place now,” he says. The merchandise operation — a weekly vendor table and a small display case — remains modest, though a friend once spotted a Bamboo Willie’s t-shirt riding an escalator in Las Vegas. “That’s pretty cool,” Gleim admits.
The groovy chill vibe is the point. Everyone is welcome, nothing is pretentious, the boats pull up to the T-dock, and the music plays on. That is how a bar opened in 1998 became part of the fabric of Pensacola Beach — and why the party, as the venue likes to say, never stops.