“The Little Rascals” was a series of movie shorts that ran from 1922 to 1938, then was repackaged as a television show. When a casual eatery named Spanky’s, which echoed the “speakeasy” days of Prohibition (1920–1933), opened in Naples, Florida, in 1984, “Spanky” McFarland—one of the Little Rascals— sued for unapproved use of his name.
When the suit was settled, the restaurant and drinking establishment was able to keep its moniker, and it continues to serve casual food and adult beverages offered in water glasses to recall Prohibition practices. The walls are plastered with vintage photographs, one table offers seating in old barber chairs, and the salad bar occupies a 1924 Model T truck.
Spanky’s is one of a number of modern-day “speakeasies” that recapture the lore and lure of clandestine drinking establishments that proliferated during the Roaring ‘20s. These hidden locations were nestled behind secret doors, bookcases, and other facades known to patrons but not to lawmen, and they often required a password to gain entrance. Customers were cautioned to “speak easy”—or quietly—when discussing the illicit drinking establishments so as not to alert officials about their location.
In recent years, there has been a mini-explosion of wannabe speakeasies that seek to replicate the allure and ambience of their forebears. These are watering holes across the country where customers can relive and recapture this colorful, controversial chapter of the nation’s past.
Like Spanky’s, the bar at the American Prohibition Museum in Savannah, Georgia, serves up libations similar to those that were popular a century ago. Fancy cocktails were then created by bartenders to mask the bad taste of poor-quality alcohol that often was laced with questionable additives.
