Puerto Rican-style restaurant is flagship business for AMPLIFY Clearwater Hispanic/Latino initiative

Clearwater’s 45 Sports Bar & Lounge is many things under one roof.

It’s a top-notch Puerto Rican restaurant serving traditional dishes like mofongo and tripleta. It’s a sports bar, with burgers and wings on the menu and futbol and football on TV. It’s a bar with its own signature cocktail, the 45. On weekend nights, it’s a club, with a packed house and a live DJ. It’s a lounge with large, comfortable chairs and pool tables.

Since opening in a shopping plaza along Cleveland Street in July, it’s also emerged as a flagship business for AMPLIFY Clearwater’s new Hispanic/Latino initiative, a support system and networking group for Hispanic and Latino small business owners. The program includes a monthly meet-up, Networking con AMPLIFY.

AMPLIFY Clearwater Chief of Staff Joe Lugo says he had the idea for the Hispanic/Latino initiative in mind when he joined AMPLIFY in late 2023. With the support of AMPLIFY President and CEO Amanda Payne, AMPLIFY, the chamber of commerce group for the Clearwater area, launched the program over the summer.  

“When Amanda and I first talked about me coming on board, she saw the passion that I have for the Hispanic and Latino community, who are so often marginalized and underserved,” Lugo says. “I wanted to create a networking group, a group of support. That’s what we already do as a chamber, we support the business community. It doesn’t matter what color, language or cultural background, we want to see them all be successful.” 

A model business to follow

Sitting at a high-top table inside 45 Sports Bar & Lounge with co-owners Roberto Anglada and Jean Paul “JP” Ocasio late on a weekday morning, Lugo says the business can serve as a model for other Latino and Hispanic-owned small businesses in Clearwater. With Clearwater’s large Hispanic and Latino population, including a large community of immigrants from the Mexican state of Hidalgo, the need is there.

“This is a great neighborhood place,” he says. “Now that the doors are open they’re starting to make things happen. But they went through a lot to open the doors. We have a template now. So when we look at another Hispanic business, we have a model, a template, for how to make this happen, how to make this work. We have mentors who can help other people who are opening businesses. They went through a lot so they know what to do. When somebody else is opening up a business, they can help.”

Ocasio spent 24 years as a head chef in Puerto Rico but this is the first restaurant the brothers-in-law (their wives are sisters) have owned. The name comes from the lounge’s signature drink, the 45, made with Licor 43. 

The business’ three rooms- a lounge room with pool tables and comfy armchairs, a sports bar section with TVs, high-top tables and the bar, and an area with more traditional restaurant seating – were actually three separate vacant storefronts. Ocasio and Anglada expected it would take six months to renovate the space and build it out into a restaurant and lounge. But permitting and code review and requirements and the extensive renovation work stretched the process out to 11 months. Eleven months when they were paying rent without any income. But they persevered, opened the doors and quickly attracted a customer base.

“Some people come in for a drink, they see the menu and they want to eat,” Anglada says. “Or they come in to eat and they see the bar and they want a drink. Or they see the pool tables and want to play.”

Building the program

Lugo says the Hispanic/Latino initiative is still a work in progress. He wants to build it up with workshops, boot camps and mentoring in Spanish. Because of language barriers, many Spanish-speaking small business owners do not get the assistance they need with understanding a 1099 and other tax and business forms, Lugo says. He wants the Hispanic/Latino initiative to be a go-to resource to help them with those things.  

“The idea is to reach out to our Hispanic/ Latino business community and create opportunities for growth and sustainability but in a manner that is processable for them,” Lugo says.

The next Networking Con AMPLIFY is 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 7th at AMPLIFY Clearwater’s offices, 1346 S. Fort Harrison Ave.

For more information, go to AMPLIFY Clearwater and 45 Sports Bar & Lounge