Back in the heyday of the Wedgewood Bar in the mid-1970s, owner Bob Pope had his hands full. The attorney ran the motel/dance club on Fourth Street South and 18th Avenue for about 18 months before he closed its doors.
But those 18 months were definitely memorable.
Pope, who still lives in St. Petersburg, says he tried to make the historic landmark into an LGBT resort, but the expense behind refurbishing the property was huge, and he didn’t have deep pockets at the time.
“We just had to make improvements as we went,” Pope remembers. “We did have a beautiful garden and a nice swimming pool. During our height we’d have people standing in line for a block and a half to get inside.”
But despite the popularity, it was hard to keep the Wedgewood running. Back then, most people didn’t know that Pope didn’t have a liquor license for the venue.
“We had a restaurant license, which meant we had to serve food,” he says. “We didn’t have the stand-alone liquor license and that caused some of our problems. I’m not a restaurateur and I didn’t know how to watch over it—and neither did my general manager.
Speaking of general managers, Pope says that the St. Petersburg police arrested his manager once during one of three raids on the Wedgewood.
The charge?
“Operating a cabaret after-hours,” Pope says with a laugh. “They said that since we didn’t have a cabaret license and we were serving breakfast after the bar closed, we were in violation.”
Ultimately the case was dismissed against the manager but police raids made it hard to sustain business. The police would line people up, take names and many would appear in the next day’s St. Petersburg Times police blotter.
It wasn’t all bad news for the Wedgewood, however. The bar did have one—and only one—nationally known entertainer in its dance club.
According to Pope, Tiny Tim stayed at the motel for a week during his ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ heyday and put on a show unlike any other.
“He was an amazing character,” Pope recalls. “I remember when he started his act he sang for about 46 minutes straight without stopping. He’d sing one song after another. When he did finally stop the place went wild. People were standing on tables! He really was quite an entertainer.”
The Wedgewood was originally a high-class dining establishment known for its collection of Wedgewood china, hence the name. By the time Pope took control, the property was old and falling apart. The main air conditioning unit, for example, was an old water-cooled system that constantly broke down.
“Even having someone on the staff who could fix the thing didn’t help too much,” he says. “It was always breaking down and when it was 95 degrees inside and you were dancing to that music, it made it hard to keep a crowd.”
Several other owners after Pope tried to keep The Wedgewood alive, but it eventually closed for good. When the Suncoast Resort opened in the 1990s, it reintroduced the Wedgwood name in the piano bar, but with a different spelling.
“It was a nice gesture on their part,” Pope says. “But we spelled our bar’s name with an ‘e.’ They left the ‘e’ off of their spelling. It was still nice, though.”
The original Wedgewood had 15 owners before it finally closed for good in 1982. It has since been torn down.
