Keg 'n Cork dead; Is Keg 'n Cork alive?

Winter Park doesn't have many places that you'd call a bar. We have restaurants with that characteristic polished wood high-top. We have Fiddler's Green, Spatz and TAPS. And until today, we had the Keg 'n Cork.

If that name doesn't sound familiar, don't worry. It hasn't been there too long. If it was your regular watering hole, sit a spell. This is gonna to be a slow pour.

The vaguely Irish-styled cozy bar along West Fairbanks avenue had been there for about a year when the sign went up on the door today announcing a permanent last call.

That's a shame, because the Keg 'n Cork was the closest that the blur of watering holes occupying the same footprint at 1566 W. Fairbanks Ave. over the last three years has come to matching the neighborly charm of the original Fairbanks Tavern and its immediate replacement, McRaney's Tavern.

After the original, McRaney's had by far the longest run. A stone's throw from longtime favorites Paco's Mexican Restaurant and Linda's Winter Park Diner, it was stumbling distance from hundreds of homes in the aptly Celtic Killarney neighborhood.

McRaney's had all the old gaelic charm to back up the name just outside the weathered walls. It had an authentic old wood bar, familiarly friendly bartenders, soft worn-in seats, a broken pool table that would let you play for free sometimes. It had just enough TVs to satisfy a sports fan without attracting moths or turning conversations into shouting matches. And it even had an honest fireplace.

Then after a five-year run, McRaney's, with smiling wisecracking bartendress Jen, the ever-present weird beer specials, and the infinite bottle list, disappeared in early 2012.

Since then, West Fairbanks Avenue has undergone a slow transformation that has come in fits and starts that at times was even heralded as boldly as a "reinvention." Desperate to be pretty, Winter Park's rusty western gateway has come a long way with the help of a new coat of paint. More eye-catching landscaping near the soon-to-be-gone asphalt suicide lanes has cut the carbon footprint and promised to slow the steady flow of commuters just long enough to start seeing what they're missing.

Maybe they've already noticed an eclectic art gallery in a funeral home, longtime icon Linda's, plus that new fashion-forward McDonald's. And if they looked hard enough as they crept past the bronze bull in front of the mega-sized new 4Rivers, they might think they were driving a time machine. That's because the bar-née-saloon-née-taphouse-née-tavern has changed monikers and periods so rapidly you'd think you were Marty McFly.

It starts in a 2006 vision of old Ireland, where a lilting accent beckons you beyond the brick and wood walls of McRaney's Tavern. Then a scant few blinks pass and it's now Barley's Taphouse, which ripped out all the charm, replaced the comfy but worn furniture with IKEA stools and formica and opened up the floor to a presumably more upscale yet less discerning customer who would never come. Then half a blink later suddenly your modified DeLorean emerges from a shower of sparks and it's in the old west at the Winter Park Saloon. Before you can take a look inside, the door slams shut and you're firing up a steam train to push you out of there at 88mph. As you look behind you, you can already see the sign changing to the Keg 'n Cork.

Your gull-winged time machine screeches to a halt and it's 2015 already. The Keg 'n Cork has just tapped out. But there's a literal sign of life on the door; it turns out that final down-turned pint may only be for the Keg and Cork name on the glass. They're reopening in a week with the same staff, the same management, but with a new owner and a new name.

What does that entail for the future of the almost-McRaney's Keg 'n Cork? Hopefully a blast from the (not-so-near) past. Bring back the old furniture, uncover and dust off the fireplace. And leave the formica in the store.