This Mills 50 district guide covers Mills 50, Mills 50 bars, food, and things to do around 1225 N Mills Ave. Pour Choice is the self pour taproom in the district, with 50 taps, a full bar with cocktails and spirits, and a free parking lot. Closed to the public Monday and Tuesday. Private events can book those days.
Key facts
- Self-pour taproom at 1225 N Mills Ave, Orlando, FL 32803 (Mills 50)
- (321) 304-2540
- Hours as of October 2026: Wednesday and Thursday 5 PM to midnight, Friday 5 PM to 2 AM, Saturday noon to 2 AM, Sunday noon to 10 PM. Closed to the public Monday and Tuesday.
- 50 self-pour taps plus a full bar with cocktails and spirits
- Free parking lot at 1225 N Mills Ave
- 91 indoor capacity, plus outdoor space
- Private events available, including Monday and Tuesday
- 21 and older. No kitchen and no food trucks. BYO food welcome.
Last updated: October 22, 2026
What the Mills 50 District actually is
The Mills 50 District (locals also search Mills 50 Orlando) is the slice of Orlando roughly bordered by Virginia Drive to the north, Colonial Drive (Highway 50) to the south, the rail line to the east, and Mills Avenue running through the middle. On paper it is a commercial district. In practice it is the most interesting few square miles of Orlando: Vietnamese restaurants that have been here for 40 years, tattoo shops, tiny galleries, a Saturday farmers' market, record stores, and some of the city's best independent shops.
It is also where Pour Choice Taphouse is. We are at 1225 N Mills Ave, with a large free on-site parking lot. This guide is the neighborhood brief: food, walking, parking, and Saturday pacing. For nightlife on the avenue, use the bars on Mills Ave page.
How Mills 50 became Mills 50
The name is pure Orlando practicality: Mills Avenue meets Colonial Drive - State Road 50. For most of the twentieth century this was a straightforward commercial strip of groceries, pharmacies, and auto shops serving the neighborhoods around it. Two things turned it into what it is now.
The first was the Vietnamese community. After 1975, refugee families settling in Orlando opened restaurants, markets, and bakeries along Colonial Drive around Mills Avenue, and the corridor slowly became known as Little Saigon. It grew into one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the Southeast - and it's the reason the food here is still the anchor of the neighborhood fifty years later.
The second was the district getting organized. Mills 50 became one of Orlando's official Main Street districts, and the district organization leaned into what the neighborhood already was: independent, artsy, a little rough around the edges. That's where the murals came from, the famously painted dumpsters, the art-covered utility boxes, and a steady preference for local owners over chains.
The result is a neighborhood where a family restaurant that's been open since the 80s can share a wall with a two-year-old natural wine bar, and nobody finds it strange. It's scruffier than downtown, cheaper than Winter Park, and - if you ask us - more interesting than both.
Where to eat
Mills 50's food scene is genuinely unusual for a city this size. Two things to know first:
- The Vietnamese food is real. Mills 50 has one of the oldest and largest Vietnamese communities in the Southeast. Pho, banh mi, and bun are what this neighborhood is known for. If you've only had Vietnamese food in a strip mall before, the range here is different.
- Newer spots are mostly on Mills Avenue and Virginia Drive. The strip along Mills Ave between Virginia and Colonial has a rolling set of newer restaurants - Thai, tacos, brunch, ramen, pizza. Some are excellent. Some turn over fast. Locals just call around: "what's still good this month?"
If you come to Pour Choice, you can bring any of it with you. There is no kitchen and no food trucks. We have a BYO food policy: order a banh mi, grab pizza next door, or have a caterer drop off trays. We pour the drinks; you handle the food. That is why our BYO-food events are a common private-event format, and why the self pour taproom Orlando page is the drinks brief.
Mills 50 bars
Searches for Mills 50 and Mills 50 bars usually want a drink plan on Mills Ave, not a downtown club. Mills 50 bars run from old-school rooms to cocktail bars, wine bars, music rooms, and the self pour taproom at Pour Choice, 1225 N Mills Ave. This guide owns the area. The best bars in Mills 50 page owns the bar-by-bar list.
The short version for this Mills 50 guide:
- Go early on weeknights. Most Mills 50 bars get busy between 9 PM and 11 PM. If you want conversation and actual bartender attention, arrive between 5 and 8.
- Weekends belong to the locals until around 10 PM, then a younger downtown crowd starts drifting up Mills Ave.
- Parking is almost always free. There's a large on-site parking lot at Pour Choice and plenty of street parking. You don't need to pay a valet or a downtown garage to drink here.
At Pour Choice specifically, we're the largest self-pour tap room in Orlando - 50 rotating taps of craft beer, hard seltzer, cider, and cocktails on tap, plus a full liquor bar. You link your payment to an RFID wristband and pay by the ounce, so you can try a sample of something you've never heard of instead of committing to a full pint. It's the most interactive drinking format in the neighborhood and probably the easiest one to bring a mixed group to - everyone finds something they like. For birthdays, watch parties, and office nights, start on our private events hub.
The Saturday ritual
There's a rhythm to Saturdays in Mills 50 that almost every local falls into eventually. It goes roughly like this:
- Late morning farmers' market or coffee. The Audubon Park market (technically one neighborhood east) is the big weekly one. The Mills 50 coffee spots - Drunken Monkey, Stardust, and a few newer cafés - fill in for everyone who doesn't want to drive.
- Lunch in the district. Vietnamese if you're being authentic about it, pizza or tacos if you're hungover, ramen if it's a cool day.
- Afternoon errands or antique shopping. Mills 50 has a surprisingly deep vintage/antique scene.
- Early drinks. The Mills 50 bars open around 5 PM. This is the window where things are calm, patios are open, and the drink quality is best.
- Dinner - or BYO dinner at a bar. More and more of the neighborhood has gotten comfortable with "sit at a bar, order food in, make a night of it." At Pour Choice, that's the default.
- Late. Live music, DJ nights, patio drinks until last call. Friday and Saturday we're open until 2 AM.
Landmarks and things to do
A few fixtures help you get your bearings:
- Track Shack. The running store on N Mills Ave has been a neighborhood institution for decades and anchors most of Orlando's local race scene. If a 5K is happening anywhere nearby, it probably starts or ends around here.
- The murals and painted dumpsters. Mills 50 treats its alley infrastructure as a public art program. The large murals along Mills Ave and the painted dumpsters behind the restaurants are genuinely worth a walk - locals use them as landmarks when giving directions.
- The Little Saigon corridor. The stretch of Colonial Drive around Mills Avenue is the cultural heart of the district. Even if you're not stopping to eat, it's worth driving slowly once just to read the storefronts.
- Harry P. Leu Gardens. Technically just northeast of the district, but close enough that locals treat the 50-acre botanical garden as part of the neighborhood's weekend circuit.
On the calendar, the biggest recurring moment is Lunar New Year. The Vietnamese community's Tet celebrations bring dragon and lion dances, street festivals, and packed restaurants to the corridor every January or February - it's the busiest and best time to see the neighborhood at full volume. Dates shift with the lunar calendar, so check current listings before you plan around it. The rest of the year runs on smaller district events: art walks, market days, and the holiday happenings that show up along Mills Ave in December. If you're planning one of those December gatherings yourself, our Christmas party venue and company holiday party pages cover how groups use the district for seasonal events.
If any of it sounds like a lot to take in, that's the point. Start with dinner in the district, end with a pour at our place on Mills Ave, and let the neighborhood fill in the rest.
Parking, transit, and getting around
Mills 50 is one of the easiest neighborhoods in Orlando to park in. A few specifics:
- Free street parking is available on most side streets and along Mills Ave in the evenings.
- A large shared lot sits behind the Pour Choice / Mills Ave strip, and it's free for patrons.
- Lyft and Uber are reliable here even on weekends. A trip from downtown Orlando is usually under $15, and a trip from the theme park hotels runs $25-40 depending on traffic.
- Lynx buses run up and down Mills Ave, though they're more useful for daytime errands than late-night drinks.
If you're planning an event here - a corporate happy hour, a birthday party, a bachelor or bachelorette weekend - parking stops being a real concern. We've hosted corporate groups of 40+ and bachelor/bachelorette groups who mostly rolled up in two or three Lyfts. The neighborhood is built for it.
What is new in Mills 50 (and what is not)
The district keeps adding restaurants. Orlando Weekly has tracked a wave of new concepts along Mills Ave and Colonial Drive: Japanese curry at Cowboy Curry inside Mills Market, a 10-seat sushi counter at Okonomi, a daytime bakery at Kaya, and more rooms still in build-out. Treat that list as a snapshot. Storefronts turn over. The constants are more useful for visitors.
Still true: Vietnamese food on Colonial is the neighborhood's identity, not a trend. Little Saigon is why people drive here from the suburbs. Still true: parking is easier than downtown. Still true: the interesting bars sit on Mills Ave, not on I-Drive. Still true: you can bring food into Pour Choice, which is why event planners use this block instead of a hotel package.
Mills Market (Asian food hall on Colonial) and East End Market (Audubon Park, one neighborhood east) are the two halls locals actually use. East End is the Saturday morning move: coffee, baked goods, picnic tables. Mills Market is the "we cannot agree on one cuisine" dinner. Pour Choice is the drinks half of both of those plans because we do not compete with a kitchen. We pour.
If you are hosting, the buyer question is not "which new restaurant is hottest." It is "can 30 people sit together, pour without a line, and eat food we already like?" That is the job this tap house is built for. Use the form on this page with dates and a headcount. For exclusive-use nights, see private event venue and Mills 50 event space.
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