Lost Restaurants of Miami

By Seth H Bramson

Tucked around a corner or soaking up the spotlight, Miami's restaurants defend an international reputation for superb cuisine and service. The constant buzz of new arrivals to the city's glamorous food scene often obscures the memory of the celebrated culinary institutions that have closed their doors. Here author Seth Bramson recounts the life--and the often untimely passing--of coffee shops, steakhouses and every level, kind and type of restaurant in between. This joyous look at bygone eateries serves up course after course of beloved fare, from the likes of Jahn's in Coral Gables to Red Diamond in Miami, Pumpernik's on Miami Beach and Rascal House in Sunny Isles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781439671689

Seth H Bramson

Seth Bramson is Miami's foremost local historian. He is America's single most-published Florida history book author, with sixteen of his twenty-two books dealing directly with the villages, towns, cities, counties, people and businesses of the South Florida Gold Coast. Bob Jensen retired in Homestead as a Navy Commander after serving 28 years. He served in Germany, the Philippines, the US Embassy in Cyprus, Iceland, and twice at the National Security Agency and at Naval Security Group Headquarters in Washington D.C.

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Introduction

Today, as these words are being written, Miami-Dade County (Greater Miami) has several thousand food and beverage, bar and nightclub licenses in operation. Stretching from the Broward County line on the north to the Monroe County line on the south and west to the Collier County line, Miami-Dade today encompasses more than 2,200 square miles. One could almost spend a lifetime eating his or her way through the kaleidoscopic array in what is today considered one of the greatest food towns in America. But this is now, and this book is about then—an incredible history with an equally incredible range of food and beverage offerings and opportunities beginning as early as (or perhaps a bit earlier than) December 31, 1896, when the great and fabled Henry Flagler–owned Royal Palm Hotel opened on the north bank of the Miami River.

Invited guests supped sumptuously on a magnificent dinner prepared especially for the hotel’s opening, which sprang into existence only five months after the city of Miami, the first incorporated municipality in today’s Miami-Dade County.

The Royal Palm, until its demise following the September 17 and 18, 1926 hurricane, was the absolute social center of Miami. During the winter season, almost every social event of consequence was held at that hotel, which had come to prominence in the days before the Miami Biltmore in Coral Gables or the Roney Plaza in Miami Beach. Because the center of life, both business and residential, was near downtown, it was generally far more convenient to hold balls and functions at the Royal Palm, and its demise coincided, ironically, with the building of the new hotels on Biscayne Boulevard. The exit of the one and the entrée of the others was almost eerie.

While there were various individuals and families scattered throughout the county, from far south Dade to Coconut Grove, along the banks of the aforementioned Miami River and north to Arch Creek and Fulford (later North Miami and North Miami Beach), there seems to be no documented record of any formal food serving operations prior to the opening of the Royal Palm. It does appear, however, that Captain and Mrs. William Fulford did provide room and board for a modest fee in the 1890s at the Biscayne House of Refuge, on what would become Miami Beach in 1915. Commodore and Mrs. Ralph M. Munroe (he was the founder of the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club) and the Peacock family, both in Coconut Grove, possibly did so even earlier, the latter at their Peacock Inn.

Eventually, and slowly but surely, as the area developed, hardy restaurant and club pioneers began to open various facilities. Because one of the two mothers of Miami, Julia Tuttle (Mary Brickell was the other), would not permit the sale of alcohol on her property north of the Miami River, the first known bar or saloon, in what was then called North Miami, owned and operated by W.N. Woods, opened just north of Mrs. Tuttle’s property in what is today downtown Miami (what was then Eighth’s Street, today’s Northeast/Northwest Fourth Street) sometime in the mid- to late 1890s.

The story of Joe and Jennie Weiss and their son, Jessie, coming to Ocean Beach (later Miami Beach) in early 1913 is South Florida legend. They went to work at Smith’s Casino for five years (until 1918), after which the Weisses opened Joe’s Restaurant (Shore Dinners a Specialty). Today Joe’s (now suffixed with Stone Crab) Restaurant is the oldest eating place in South Florida and second oldest in the state. While this book will note the dining or eating facilities in the Ocean Beach/Miami Beach bathing casinos, Joe’s cannot be covered because, along with the Forge, the lineal descendant of Andy Somma’s Old Forge Restaurant (also on Miami Beach); Frankie’s on Bird Road and Southwest Ninety-Second Avenue; and Shorty’s and Captain’s Table, both on South Dixie Highway on the mainland side, of all the great and original Miami-Dade County restaurants, is among the very, very few still in operation. In fact, at this juncture, the author is requesting that any of our readers who may be aware of any original food and beverage facilities still in operation, let him know.

We are certainly aware of the Seven Seas on Red Road, south of the airport, but that name, while revered in Miami restaurant history, is many times removed—in terms of ownership and management—from the original South Seas in downtown Miami.

As the various cities came into existence—Miami, Homestead in 1913 and Miami Beach as a town in 1915 and then a city in 1917—they were followed by a plethora of development and municipal incorporations during the great Florida boom of the 1920s. This ranged from Country Club Estates (Miami Springs) to Opa-Locka, Hialeah, to the aforementioned North Miami (originally as the Town of Miami Shores) and North Miami Beach. Then, in the 1930s, Surfside and others came into existence.

Continuing into the 1990s, Aventura, Sunny Isles Beach and several more incorporated as municipalities with Miami Lakes (2000), Palmetto Bay (2002), Doral and Miami Gardens (2003) and Cutler Bay (2005) following. With corporate incorporation came growth, although many of the previously unincorporated areas had substantial population bases, and because of that, those areas already had a good few restaurants, bars and clubs.

The reader is asked to recognize that with the thousands of operations that have come and gone in Greater Miami, it is simply not possible to picture or even write about each and every one. In fact, to do so would require a volume of encyclopedic size, and that is simply not possible at this time. Your author, though, does believe that this book contains an excellent sampling of the various kinds and types of food and beverage enterprises and the facilities that housed them and a well-considered geographic distribution so that the reader understands that a strong effort has been made to encompass the entire county.

Once again, the author feels it important to note and state the obvious: every operation could not be included in this volume, and it is further important to note that every generation has had its favorites and its unhappy closures and losses of places they loved.

Certainly, losing Parham’s and the Concord (the last of the Jewish-style cafeterias), Dubrow’s, the Star, Harfenist, the Famous, Rosedale’s, the Paramount Soda Shop on Flagler Street, the coffee shop on the west side of Miami Avenue in Burdine’s, Lee’s Fruit Bar, Rusty’s Roost at Miami Beach Kennel Club, Epicure, Dagwood’s in Sunny Isles, all of the drugstore and five and ten cent stores’ lunch counters and elegant dineries such as Maxim’s and the Brook Club in the gambling casino in Surfside, along with all of the rest, from one end of the county to the other, has been, to no small extent, painful.

Opened on December 31, 1896, Henry Flagler’s FEC Hotel Company hotel in Miami was the Royal Palm, which was the gathering spot for Miami’s business and social elites. This main dining room lunch menu, dated Sunday, February 7, 1907, presents a plethora of hot and cold items for those fortunate enough to be dining in.

But for better or for worse, it is what it is, and although we have no choice but to accept what has happened, we certainly do have a choice in our ability to sit down and to read through the pages of this book, which is meant to bring back the good and happy memories of those palmy days. And through this volume we now have the ability to share those memories—and the accompanying stories—with friends and families.

Hopefully, this book will be only the hors d’oeuvre, after which more volumes specific to given cities, particularly Miami and Miami Beach, can follow.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, grab your favorite beverage, have a seat, enjoy a sandwich or a slice of pizza or a piece or two of sushi, sit back, relax, reminisce and refresh your memories of the great times, the great places and the great friends whose company you enjoyed at the equally great but now lost restaurants of Greater Miami.

1

The Story Must Begin with Coconut Grove and Downtown Miami

In the beginning, the hardy pioneers lived off both the land and the water, with an abundance of tropical truck (produce), various fresh fruits, a wide variety of game and, indeed, a great amount of fresh seafood and shellfish—from clams and oysters to various types of crabs to a wide range of fish. While it wasn’t paradise, the weather, especially from late fall to late spring, was delightful.

When, then, did the first restaurant come into existence?

In terms of the mainland side, it appears that Commodore and Mrs. Ralph Munroe, as well as the Peacock family’s Peacock Inn, served the first meals as part of the room and board offered to visitors. At the present time, it is unknown if there was anything resembling a formal dining room in either establishment, both open for food service and overnight guests in the winter season only.

Because we know that the Royal Palm, Henry Flagler’s Miami hotel, opened on the last day of 1896, it is likely that those who could afford the elegance in that still-frontier village (even though it came into existence on July 28, 1896, as a full-fledged city) would, from time to time, enjoy meals in the hotel’s dining rooms. Although there were several inns in existence prior to the