Two floors of sexy Castleberry lounging

There're many similarities between the Caribbean and southeastern US: both have warm climates, natives with unique, distinguishable accents, and extreme pride in their not including Cleveland. Merging the two in food form, Cloud IX

Open in former food-n-blues venue Star, Cloud's a sprawling complex of southern and Caribbean eats 'n' cocktails, with a street-level lounge clad with cloud-painted walls, gun metal tube lights, and photos of ATL's skyline, plus a downstairs wooden deck with stone fountains and a remodeled 85-seat room decked with posters of Coltrane, Dizzy, and Miles called "The Lab" (get a hot partner, or the whole semester's just shot). Pre-dinner ingestibles include fried green tomatoes, blackened crab fritters, Caribbean roti, and spicy chicken soup (w/ scotch bonnet peppers & dumplings), while mains run from seafood jambalaya and hickory bourbon-marinated salmon to curry chicken w/ rice & red potatoes, golden-fried "Heavenly" chicken, and mango-sauced jerk chicken, who really doesn't mince words regarding his feelings on the sauce's shiny short shorts and seduction of Alec Baldwin. For sippin, it's import suds like Red Stripe, domestics from PBR to Hardcore Cider, red and white wines, and signature cocktails like the "Silver Lining" 'tini (citrus vodka, triple sec, white cran juice, lime), the four-rummed "Bob Marley", and their "frozen version of a Blue M-F'er", called the Stairway to Heaven, because you know sometimes words have two meanings...but wait, there's two of everything

The joint's open every damn day starting at 4pm, a DJ'll hold things down Thursday through Sunday, and on weeknights they've got half-off apps and $4 well drinks for happy hour, which is every hour for the proud residents of not-Cleveland.