Just what brownsville needed.

A new gun shop, a BBQ joint, and a barber shop.

Some new businesses are opening up shop in Brownsville; a new gun shop, restaurant, and several stores.

Channel 3's Christina Leavenworth has more on their vision for Brownsville.

The landscape of Brownsville is changing. This building is going to be turned into a restaurant and several stores, and just down the street, a gun shop opened recently.

Joey melei saw a need, so his family opened Trader Steve's Gun Shop right near Cervantes and Green Streets.

"I grew up in this area, been here my whole life, everybody knows everyboyd, they dont bother you and dont bother me..."

That's the same reason, Arlene's BBQ is expanding. Arlene William's is turning this whole building into several businesses.

"Downtown already has been built, time for them to come uptown to see what I'm doing in uptown Brownsville area..."

She says the new restaurant will be open by the end of this year, and a barber shop and an accessories store will quickly follow.
Her vision is for Brownsville to soon be booming.

"We need more community and commissioners, inner city, get involved to bring business here, so people can shop eat her and leave a mark that Brownsville is not such a dangerous place."

In Brownsville, Christina Leavenworth, Channel 3 News.
New businesses in Brownsville

Good. I'm glad to hear Brownsville is getting some new businesses.

Arlenes is the place!

Sounds like positive news.  Best of luck.  One day when I am in Pensacola, I am going to try Arlene's.

I like Arlene....and her Bar-B-Que restaurant.

Joanimaroni wrote:I like Arlene....and her Bar-B-Que restaurant.

 Bar-B-Que....greens...cornbread....does it get any better?....Gonna have to get an Arlene's fix soon!.....

newswatcher wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:I like Arlene....and her Bar-B-Que restaurant.

 Bar-B-Que....greens...cornbread....does it get any better?....Gonna have to get an Arlene's fix soon!.....

I'm thinking what you are thinking.

I doubt that the gun shop will sell many guns. People in Brownsville either buy guns from thieves or go out and steal a gun.

Good for Arlene though, the BBQ is fine.

I enjoy writing short stories and one of my characters is a Private Detective here in Pensacola named Ray Thorpe. Following is a story about Arlene's I wrote a couple of years ago. I am not a professional writer so you will have to overlook the errors. I left the rest of the story out since it is not relative to the Arlene's segment.

Thorpe and Frenchman’s Creek

    The sky is the color of an ancient aluminum pot, gray and nasty looking and blowing across it sideways is a cold rain. It is January in Pensacola; the warm weather of the summer is a forgotten memory. I am sick to death of the sort of private investigating I am currently involved in but I got a habit, it’s called eating and man will do many deplorable things to satisfy this thing called hunger and paying bills so I am following a city councilman around with my little camera hoping to catch him with his girlfriend. His name is Jerry Alexander and he is a joke as a public servant. A lapdog to the Good Ol’ Boys who run this town and a liar of the first order. So far he’s been in and out of three different construction companies, making deals I suppose, but has not been around any women and I am hungry so I stopped at Arlene’s Bar-B-Cue for a little take home. Arlene’s is a nice place in a bad part of town, right in the middle of Brownsville where gunfire is a daily part of life.
     “Hi, Arlene, can I get a whole chicken to go?”
     “Thorpe, it’s good to see you, doll, but it’s bad for business. Most folks see you as the LAW and stay away when you’re in here.”
     “Then make it short and sweet, hon.”
     “You still givin’ half of this chicken to that big ol’ monstah dog you call Bubba”
     “Of course, he wants it all but he is a good democrat so we share.”
     I am standing in a corner reading the menu while Arlene fills my order. Right beside me is a large display of pint jars of the outstanding barbecue sauce she makes. I pick up a jar and am admiring the label which has Porky Pig dressed in a chef outfit with a jar in one cleverly gloved hand and a cleaver in the other when I hear a voice say,
     “Okay, bitch, open that cash box and hand it over or I cuts yo’ throat!”
     I am standing behind the rack of Arlene’s Barbecue sauce and I can see a dangerous looking dude who doesn’t see me and when I see he has a long knife which he is waving threateningly at Arlene, I instantly revert to my high school pitching days and throw the jar of Arlene’s Best Red as hard as I can at the dude’s head. It is a strike. A beanball.  A knock down pitch. He drops like one of the pigs that maybe Porky chops up with his cleaver. He kicks a couple of times then is quiet, lying in a spreading pool of bright red sauce.
     “Good Lord have mercy, Thorpe!”  Arlene yelled, “Is he dead?”
     “Dead to the world only, my dear, he’ll survive to spend some time in Captain Hedges Jail,” I say, as I lifted my finger from his carotid artery which is actually pumping nicely. While Arlene calls 911, I look for some I.D. He is Rashuan Uglebert according to his expired Drivers License.
     “Do you know him, Arlene?”  I say as I cuff him to a water pipe under the counter.
     Before she can answer, her husband, Ray, charges in holding a cleaver of his own, ready to do battle.
     “What’s wrong here, Baby, I heard you yellin’!”
     Arlene, who is shaking like a leaf, pointed at the man on the floor, and screeches, ”He was out to get me with that knife, wantin’ me to give him my cash register, and then Thorpe here, busted him good and laid him out.
     Ray just stood there in amazement.
     “It’s all over, Ray, I took care of him.”
     “Jesus Christ!  Thorpe, you musta killed him, the mufuggah is covered with blood, did you carve him up with that butcher knife lying beside him?”
     “Naw, Ray, use your nose, dude, it’s your favorite sauce for the best barbecue in Pensacola!”
     “I be damn, Thorpe, you brained him good, but too heavy on the sauce, that delightful mixture is expensive. Haw! Haw!”
     In a few minutes Arlene’s is a seething beehive of activity, traffic on Cervantes is at a standstill, EMTs, cops, and bystanders, most of whom at the sight of blood become starved for barbeque and so Ray and Arlene are doing a landslide business. WEOW, the local TV station had heard about the bizarre twist of the take down by a jar of Arlene’s finest and are going around interviewing people.
     An overweight, bleached blonde wannabe talking head type approached me and said.
     “They tell me you are Ray Thorpe, a private investigator, the one who thwarted a robbery attempt just minutes ago. How did it feel when you saw him fall, knowing you prevented possible bloodshed?”
     They always have to ask, ‘How did it feel’?
     “It felt like I had my ‘good stuff’ and that I could go nine innings. And “they’ are correct again. I am Ray Thorpe, but I prefer ‘intrepid sleuth’ rather than private investigator.”
     “Thank you, Mister Thorpe”, and then she waltzed off not wanting anymore of my silly bullshit.

I guess many of us live in a different world.. I know quite a few people who live in Brownsville. I use the services of Brukes Machine shop, shop at the Vietnamese food stores, and eat breakfast one a week or so at Oscars. My children went to School at Escambia Christian. Brownsville will once again rebound into the place that it used to be.

Yella, that was a great short story.....Arlene would enjoy it.

You do know Arlene was a Miami police officer before moving here.

Mr Ichi wrote:I guess many of us live in a different world.. I know quite a few people who live in Brownsville.  I use the services of Brukes Machine shop, shop at the Vietnamese food stores, and eat breakfast one a week or so at Oscars. My children went to School at Escambia Christian.  Brownsville will once again rebound into the place that it used to be.  

I go to Biển Đông but you got to watch out because they sell expired stuff and cover up the expiration dates with price tags.

Watcher wrote:

Mr Ichi wrote:I guess many of us live in a different world.. I know quite a few people who live in Brownsville.  I use the services of Brukes Machine shop, shop at the Vietnamese food stores, and eat breakfast one a week or so at Oscars. My children went to School at Escambia Christian.  Brownsville will once again rebound into the place that it used to be.  

I go to Biển Đông but you got to watch out because they sell expired stuff and cover up the expiration dates with price tags.

Is that the one on the south side of Cervantes west of Green St?

Maybe Chau's? Cervantes and Z?

Mr Ichi wrote:Maybe Chau's?  Cervantes and Z?

Chau's has a limited inventory.

The Army/Navy store across the street from Arlenes has some decent deals if someone is into the outdoors.

Joanimaroni wrote:Yella, that was a great short story.....Arlene would enjoy it.

You do know Arlene was a Miami police officer before moving here.

Thanks, Joani, I had no idea she was LEO. She's just a nice lady that has good BBQ. I don't have any idea where the story came from.

Yella wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:Yella, that was a great short story.....Arlene would enjoy it.

You do know Arlene was a Miami police officer before moving here.

Thanks, Joani, I had no idea she was LEO. She's just a nice lady that has good BBQ. I don't have any idea where the story came from.

I think she would enjoy the story.

Joanimaroni wrote:

Yella wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:Yella, that was a great short story.....Arlene would enjoy it.

You do know Arlene was a Miami police officer before moving here.

Thanks, Joani, I had no idea she was LEO. She's just a nice lady that has good BBQ. I don't have any idea where the story came from.

I think she would enjoy the story.

Joani, if you know her, feel free to send it.

Love your story, Yella!  

Yella wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:

Yella wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:Yella, that was a great short story.....Arlene would enjoy it.

You do know Arlene was a Miami police officer before moving here.

Thanks, Joani, I had no idea she was LEO. She's just a nice lady that has good BBQ. I don't have any idea where the story came from.

I think she would enjoy the story.

Joani, if you know her, feel free to send it.

I will....

Yella.....you have a pm.