The Delis, The Cafeterias, The Great Restaurants: Except for New York and Maybe L. A. There Was No Place For As Much Great Food As There Was In Miami Beach!
By Seth H. Bramson
The Bramson family moved to Miami Beach shortly after World War II, Dad having earned his second Honorable Discharge (the first, many years earlier, from the Marines, this one from the Army) and because he and Mom had vacationed there pre-World War II, the decision had been made that, indeed, that was the place where they wanted to live and raise their then-two year old little one.
I first became conscious of and about great food when, beginning the following year, Dad started taking me on a Sunday morning routine, beginning at the Mayflower Coffee Shop on Southeast First Street and Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami, where “Bonnie” was our waitress every Sunday for four years.
How I loved watching “the donut train,” the dough plopping out of the machine onto the “flat cars” which were on a track that went around inside the machine as we watched those delectables bake, and “boy howdy!” did I love those excursions over to the Miami side.
As I grew older, Sunday night dinners in various restaurants became de rigeur and we ate out almost every Sunday night, I having a particular memory of a Chinese restaurant on Washington Avenue in South Beach, the area of Miami Beach below, generally, Dade Boulevard and 23rd Street. Although I don’t really remember the food I do remember that Wan (not “Juan!”), a Chinese man, was always our waiter and was always very cordial and kind to me.
As I got older Dad began taking me to his sign shop on the south side of Fifth Street right at the corner of Collins Court, which was the alley between Washington and Collins Avenues every Saturday and I think my memories of great food began with our stops for breakfast at the Ambassador Cafeteria on the west side of Washington, in the block between 16th Street and Lincoln Road.
The Ambassador was one of the five great Miami Beach “Jewish -style” cafeterias, all of which were open from about 7:00 AM for breakfast right through late dinner. My memory of the Ambassador, even as a little guy, is still very strong because the adults could fill their coffee cups as many times as they wished from these huge urns and the cost at the time was five cents, NOT per cup but total, for as many times as you wanted to refill and it was there that I started to enjoy “coffee—milk, Dad pouring some of his coffee into a glass for me and adding at least and equal amount of milk, and oh, how I loved that.
What made the five Jewish-style cafeterias—the Ambassador and Governor or Washington Avenue, Dubrow’s on Lincoln Road, the Concord on Collins Avenue at about 20th Street and the Beck family’s great cafeteria, Hoffman’s on the corner of Espanola Way and Collins Avenue—different from “the gentile cafeterias,” besides the fact that they were open for breakfast, was the fact that one could have made to order brisket, pastrami, corned beef and other sandwiches on rye or a bagel, along with lox and cream cheese on a bagel as well as a great variety of salads much different from “the other cafeterias” in addition to which the Jewish-style cafeterias had a “haymish” (a family-like) feeling about them. Everything was great!
Of course, there were so many other wonderful place at which to dine, including a number of Kosher operations including Isaac Gellis, Royal Hungarian, Harfenist and more, while perhaps the greatest of all, The Famous, was Kosher-style but not Kosher. It was only great and when you came in and sat down you were immediately presented with a complimentary hors d’oeuvre of, if I remember correctly, gefilte fish!
And the great dining spots, for so many years, so superior to the overrated and way overpriced eateries of today were numerous. Among the names which, if you are familiar with South Florida will bring the memories pouring back are Park Avenue, Embers, Fan and Bill’s, Picciolo’s, Angie and Fred, Curry’s, Mitch’s Steak Ranch and Parham’s on Collins Avenue between 73rd and 75th Street, Le Parisien, Fu Man Chu, lordy, the list is almost endless!
But, and of course, how can we forget—we can’t—one of the greatest eateries in American history and the only one of those and the following great names that is still with us, the inimitable the Weiss/Sawitz family’s Joe’s Stone Crab Restaurant, still offering up those wonderful crustacen’s claws, along with the greatest cole slaw, hash browns, key lime pie and so much more ever proferred by a food and beverage establishment in America!
The same went for North Bay Village, just north of Miami Beach on the 79th Street Causeway, with Place for Steak, Nick and Arthur’s and Bonfire, all just terrific.
Of course, the Pub in the Newport in Sunny Isles and the second Pub in the Roney, with the gracious and ebullient Mario Talucci as our host can’t be overlooked, either.
And, yes, we can neither forget nor overlook Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor which featured the fabled “Kitchen Sink” along with Cye Mandel’s Hasta in Coral Gables plus no few other great eateries in that marvelous city.
But wait! There’s more!
Let us not forget (“Always remember and never forget!) the greatest delis in America, absolutely either “only” the equal of or better than Nate and Al’s in L. A. or the Stage or the Carnegie in New York City because in Miami Beach we enjoyed Wolfie’s #1 at Number One Lincoln Road; Wolfie’s 21 at 21st Street and Collins Avenue; Junior’s, with four locations, the Miami Beach store at 30th and Collins in the Seville Hotel, and, of course, Rascal House in Sunny Isles. (Dagwood’s was there but that came later and it, also, now but a memory.)
Folks, I know, I left out your favorite but remember, we even had great drug store food at Ben Grenald’s Moderne Drugs at the corner of Royal Palm Avenue and 41st Street and great hot dog and hamburger places such as Lum’s with their hot dog steamed in beer with sherry wine sauerkraut and the Lumburger “to die for” and the Normandy Restaurant on 71st Street just west of Indian Creek Drive with a hamburger TEN TIMES as good as that Ollieburhger nonsense which was only good if you didn’t mind his cigargette ashes cascading down into the ground beef and were willing to put up with his nastiness, which I wasn’t.
And so, in closing, a couple of final thoughts: Among my 33 books (now working on number 34—38, none self-published) is LOST RESTAURANTS OF MIAMI so with that, along with the fact that I managed some of the finest restaurants and private clubs in Miami and New York (Lloyd’s of the Maison Grande in that building filled with unappreciative chazzerim; Bernard’s in the Carriage House; the Piccadilly Hearth on Decorator’s Row; the fabled New York Gaslight Club at 124 East 56th Street, Playboy Club Miami [I am the only living former New York Gaslight Club and Playboy Club Miami general manager, and, as an aside, the Playboy Clubs came out of the Gaslight Club raison d’etre, with four Gaslight Clubs, two in Chicago and one each in New York and Washington, DC] and Miami Shores Country Club which, under my three years of management, was the only time that club ever made a profit under Village ownership and management) so I do hope and trust that you, our dear readers, will recognize and understand how I, with three of my four college degrees including my bachelor’s from the fabled School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University and one of my two master’s degrees being in Hotel and Food Service Management qualifies me to write this piece, which I sincerely hope that you not only enjoyed, but that while bringing back great memories, made you hungry.
Be—and stay—well, all, and “hearty appetite” to you, your friends and the family.
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