For almost 70 years, this beloved tavern has fed Miami. Now it’s for sale
What does a community lose when places like this close? Duffy's Tavern, a beloved Miami restaurant and bar for almost 70 years, is up for sale for $4.5 million. The property, originally built in 1929 as a residence, has been a fixture in Miami since its opening in 1955. The current owner, Wayne Russell, who has been at Duffy's since he graduated with a business degree from the University of Miami in 1984, has expressed concern about the potential for the restaurant to be converted into a condo due to the high cost of doing business. The 30, 961-square-foot property, which includes the 3,180-square foot automotive building next door, is also being sold for $3.5m. The asking price includes a full kitchen, bar, grease trap, walk-in freezer, storage areas and a liquor license, if the new owners choose to tear down Duffy's.
प्रकाशित : एक महीने पहले द्वारा Connie Ogle में Lifestyle
If a museum is a collection of important historical and cultural artifacts, a haven for the precious elements that show us all we have been as a community, then Duffy’s Tavern is a museum of Miami.
Snapshots of local families are shellacked right onto the tables. Framed photographs of other patrons vie for wall space with neon signs, license plates, sports memorabilia and newspaper headlines. Look up, and the ghosts of long-gone beers and spirits shine overhead, the bottles reincarnated as chandeliers, shedding a glow as warm as the hospitality.
Look more closely at the pictures. You’ll see old-time singer and comedian Jimmy Durante, who once played piano here. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton visited, too, promising a server he’d be president one day (she was skeptical). Over there, former UM quarterback Jim Kelly drinks green beer on St. Patrick’s Day, and around the corner, Marines pose with Duffy’s banners from locations all over the world.
The restaurant and bar, originally built in 1929 as a residence, has been feeding and watering the communities around it with warmth, humor and hamburgers ever since Martin Duffy first opened the business in 1955. Now, the property at 2108 SW 57th Ave., right on the edge of Coral Gables, is up for sale, its future uncertain even as the faithful still flock.
Owner Wayne Russell, who has been at Duffy’s since he graduated with a business degree from the University of Miami in 1984, said the prospect of the place where everybody knows your name turning into yet another condo has his customers jittery. Their fears aren’t unfounded, considering other neighborhood mom-and-pop losses, like the beloved Burger Bob’s in Coral Gables, which still hasn’t reopened.
“A lot of people know about it now,” Russell says of the sale. “People want parts of the bar or some of their pictures back. Our T shirt sales have gone crazy. I keep telling them, ‘We’re not sold yet!’ ”
The 30, 961-square-foot property, which is being sold by Kerdyk Real Estate, includes the 3,180-square foot automotive building next door. The property could remain a restaurant — the listing includes full kitchen, bar, grease trap, walk-in freezer, storage areas and a liquor license — but the space is also zoned for workplace housing, should the new owners choose to tear down Duffy’s. The asking price: $4.5 million.
Russell says a combination of factors have prompted him to sell the property, which has hosted christenings, birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers and thousands of meetings. His son, a maritime lawyer, and his daughter, a doctor, have their own careers and no interest in running the restaurant. The skyrocketing cost of doing business, from insurance rates to the price of food, has played a part, too.
“I never really thought about retiring until the pandemic came,” he admits. “But then people wanted this property. There aren’t many acres left between the ocean and the Everglades here in Miami.”
Three groups are seriously interested, he says, but adds that he still hopes to find someone who wants to keep Duffy’s alive.
“There are other knuckleheads like me out there who tell me they had their first beer here when they were 15, and they are interested now that they’re 50 or 60,” he says, adding that with a new granddaughter, he plans to stick around Miami and is willing to offer any guidance the new owners might require. “We’ve had contracts, but everything has fizzled out so far.”
Coral Gables commissioner Kirk Menendez, a Duffy’s regular for almost 20 years, says the restaurant is one of a kind.
“I keep buying Powerball and Mega Millions tickets,” he says. “I tell Wayne, ‘If I win, name your price. You’re going to get it, and Duffy’s is going to stay open.’ ”
Even though Duffy’s isn’t technically in the Gables, Menendez says that residents there have “annexed it” in their hearts.
“It’s a big part of our lives,” he says. “You go there and see people who have been going for generations and are now grandparents taking their grandkids. It’s not just the food we come for — it’s the friendships. I was there last night, and on one side of me, there were conversations about international policies, and on the other side they were talking about March Madness. You can be wealthy, a professional or someone who’s blue collar. You can be retired or in college. When we’re there, we’re all pretty much family.”
Part of what keeps customers loyal is the gregarious Russell himself, older than the Suntan U frat boy who decided not to return home to Philadelphia after college but instead run a small business in his adopted hometown. He’s the guy who knows your name, what sports your kids play, whether you want a medium-rare burger or the grilled chicken, the one who will yell out “Hey, you crazy Irishman!” across the bar when a familiar customer comes by to pick up an order.
He’s the guy who rolls the specials menu over to your table, showing you a crude drawing of Biscayne Bay and informing you your table offers a waterfront view.
His history is here, too, you see, in photos of his fraternity (he’s the guy with a parrot on his shoulder), his classic 1961 Cadillac limo, his daughter’s dance portraits. His father’s bomber jacket from World War II hangs from the ceiling in one corner, and one table is covered in family photos (“My grandkids can fight over that,” he jokes).
Among the 15 people who work at Duffy’s is Russell’s long-time partner Jim Fab, who still toils in the kitchen making soups and sauces and whatever else needs done, long past retirement age but unwilling to stop working.
“I’ve been doing dishes since I was 12,” Fab says. “I was washing dishes for 25 cents an hour for my father in New York. It’s in my blood.”
That sort of loyalty is alive in the customers, too, whether they’re stopping by for lunch, to watch the Heat or the Marlins or the Dolphins or just meeting friends over a pile of chicken wings. Stop at any table or any seat at the bar, and almost everyone will tell you they’ve been coming here for ages.
Steve Pougal of Kendall, originally from Edinburgh, first stepped into Duffy’s 28 years ago and never looked back.
“I came to Miami on vacation, and Duffy’s is the first bar I came to,” he says, adding that it reminded him of the pubs back home. “It’s friendly here. Everyone knows everyone else.”
Carlos Saque of Coral Gables, who’s one of Russell’s neighbors, concurs that Duffy’s is a habit impossible to break.
“It’s a family-oriented bar,” he says. “I was coming here myself, and then with my kids every time we finished a basketball or soccer game. Now I come with my grown-up daughter and son all the time. It’s great to come here and hang out, not just for good food and drink but to talk to everyone.”
The question of what the community loses when it loses a place like Duffy’s is never far from everyone’s mind.
“I think we’d lose a place where people can come and be themselves,” Russell says. “It’s laid-back here. There were places like this on every corner when I first came. When I started the only thing that was here was a pool table, picnic tables and the Budweiser horses above the window. I wanted to make it the best tavern on the street, then the best tavern in Miami, maybe the best in the country. . . . But this has been going on so long now. I’m at peace. If it’s got to go, it’s got to go.”
Menendez believes losing Duffy’s would be a terrible loss to the community.
“I think of the Harry Potter movies, the horcruxes that were part of Harry’s soul,” he says. “Losing Duffy’s would be losing a big part of our community’s soul.”