Few places have meant as much to Miami’s music scene as Churchill’s. The Little Haiti dive bar has been a home for misfits and rock bands since 1979. It’s the only bar that’s gotten three generations of Miamians through growing pains with mosh pits, jazz, poetry nights, and enough weird stories to last a lifetime. It closed in 2020 and reopened this September to chants of, “Miami is healing.” Has it changed? Yes and no. The walls are black now (better for hiding the grime), and the new patio feels closer to a wine bar than what it used to be (the absolute antithesis of a wine bar). There’s no smoking inside. The sign of Sir Winston even got a facelift. But that crumbly stage column covered in bumper stickers, sweat, and dead skin cells is still there. So are those godforsaken bathrooms where you learned to improve your balance and lung capacity by holding your breath while hovering over toilet seats. And the bars on the windows still protect Miami from what’s inside. There’s a new food menu, which we’re actually not afraid to eat. Though even sober, it’s a little hard to differentiate the fish from the chips, but it’ll do the trick when you’re not. For now, they’re only booking bands on weekends (find their lineup here.) That’s when chaos ensues. On slower nights, it might just be you and a multigenerational cluster of barflies who can’t believe they get to drink in Churchill’s once again.