Drinking in the Gables

The Presence of Alcohol in the City Beautiful Has Evolved by Leaps and Bounds Since Its Early Prohibition Days

Any visitor to downtown Coral Gables on a Friday Gallery Night, navigating the crowds of art-lovers wending their way artistically from gallery to gallery with their plastic wine glasses, would be surprised to learn that Coral Gables has long been a “dry city.”Drinking in the Gables has a rich and complex history, marked by strict regulations. No bars are permitted within city limits and alcohol is only supposed to be served in establishments that “primarily” serve food.

When Coral Gables first became a city, Prohibition had been in force for more than six years. George Merrick’s wife Eunice, a Christian Scientist, was fiercely opposed to drink, and George himself was a recovering alcoholic. Nonetheless, Miami was reputed to be the “leakiest place in America,” with rum, brandy, and whiskey being imported from Cuba and the Bahamas. 

Not only was the Biltmore Hotel said to offer a discreet basement speakeasy throughout Prohibition, but gangsters like Fatty Walsh were also alleged to offer liquor – in addition to girls and gambling – upstairs in what is now known as the Al Capone Suite. But following the end of Prohibition in 1933, while Miami and Coconut Grove developed a deliberately louche and raffish reputation, the Gables prided itself on an abundance of places to worship and a lack of places to drink. Even when this writer first moved to the Gables in 1985, the only places where a man could sit at the bar and order an honest drink were outside city limits.

Catering to thirsty Gables drinkers on the far side of Red Road sat Duffy’s, where the elite and effete met to drink. It was a fine drinking establishment in 1985 and it remains a fine establishment today, still serving a wide range of beers on tap under the ever-present guidance of the landlord Wayne – who knows where all the bodies are buried.

To the east, on the city’s other side, sat the Bushwhacker Lounge. The Bushwhacker was one of those uniquely American bars; a cocktail bar where it was always 4 am, whatever time of day you entered. A sad song, often Sinatra, was always playing softly on the jukebox, smoke from abandoned cigarettes spiraled from ashtrays on the bar, and the shades were always tightly drawn in case daylight should attempt to intrude.

The wine was unavailable, beer came in bottles with American labels, rye took preference over bourbon, and credit was not an option. Patrons either sat in the padded Naugahyde banquets, heads close together while they spoke discreetly in hushed tones, or at the plastic-topped bar, alone with their solitary thoughts. Sadly, the Bushwhacker is now closed; pulled down to celebrate the brave new century. There is nowhere left these days where a man can sit and ponder the meaning of the words to Old Blue Eyes’ soft crooning of “My Way.”

Apart from the Hoffbrau on Giralda, which had been a quiet neighborhood bar since 1946, in 1985, the only places to get a drink within city limits were the hotel bars – either the Biltmore or Stuart’s Bar in the Hotel St. Michel; both hurried afterthoughts to the real business of serving food and filling beds. 

The golden age of drinking in the Gables dawned in 1987 with the opening of Doc Dammers Bar in the Colonnade Hotel, named after George Merrick’s salesman who made Coral Gables such a successful reality. Because it was a hotel bar, Doc Dammers had a liquor license, and it immediately became known as the place for martinis and mojitos. 

In those days, even many Gables restaurants did not have liquor licenses and, despite its well-deserved reputation for fine dining, Coral Gables could offer few places John Martin’s was originally promoted as a restaurant specializing in fine Irish cuisine.

It had a bar, but you could not sit at it – or even lean against it. Originally, city regulations made it impossible to “belly up to the bar” and order a drink. Patrons had to sit at tables. Even if you were sitting at a table wedged against the bar and you placed your glass on the bar to order “the same again,” the barman would still have to place your refilled glass on a tray, carry it out from behind the bar, and serve you from the floor of the restaurant. 

But for whatever reason – the rich, old, oak paneling; the quality of the Guinness; Chris’s corny Cornish dignity behind the bar – the bar soon dominated the restaurant in importance, and Martin was obliged to request City permission to enlarge it just to contain the thirsty throngs. After a two-year probation for the Irish pub, the Gables Commissars discovered that the city’s walls had not, in fact, crumbled to dust. Moral Gables remained pure and intact, and John Martin’s was finally granted a full liquor license. 

For more than 30 years, it was, deservedly, the most popular bar within the city, and, on St. Patrick’s Day, multitudes filled the streets for several city blocks. Sadly, the grand establishment did not survive the COVID-19 pandemic; John Clarke and Martin Lynch retired home to the Emerald Isle and, though the name and location remain unchanged, the bar is now under new management.

In 1994, Lorraine, one of the original Irish servers from John Martin’s, and her fiancé, Danny Gutierrez, opened a small bar on the corner of Alhambra and Le Jeune, an unpromising street filled with dentist’s offices and limited parking. The Globe became an immediate success. For several years, traffic passing through the Gables would avoid Alhambra on a Friday evening because of The Globe’s happy hour crowds, which spilled onto the street, reducing it from three to a single lane of traffic.

For a few years, The Globe’s success threatened the other bars and restaurants in the city. Harald Neuweg’s Mozart Stube, for example, was just one block behind The Globe, and business became so bad that he was forced to open a new bar, Satchmo’s, on Merrick Way – the other, far side of town. The happy hour crowd, being fickle, was soon following Harald West, and the streets of Merrick Way became impassable on Friday evenings. 

Satchmo’s was also an immediate success and Harald eventually transformed it into Fritz & Franz Bierhaus, which remains there defiantly today, successfully mixing German beer with the blues of the Mississippi Delta while gallantly fighting City Hall over lease extensions. Thanks to the incredible success of The Globe, Coral Gables became an alternative destination to South Beach. 

The Globe created the initial sexy buzz, and John Martin’s and Satchmo’s, both of which had liquor licenses, provided the supporting infrastructure. Suddenly, the Gables became a “destination” for young people seeking an alternative to South Beach. These days, there are cafes, wine bars, and pubs all over the city. 

Even such sober cultural centers as Books & Books offer a literary but lively open-air wine bar, presided over by the everdignified Raul – not to mention all those popular Wine Appreciation Classes among the bookshelves – while less than a block away, La Taberna Giralda even offers live Flamenco dancers with its Spanish wines, sherries, and tapas.

A couple of years after The Globe first started bringing hipsters to the Gables, the old Hoffbrau found new owners, who renamed it The Bar. Since 1997, it has taken on a new lease of life as a neighborhood meeting place with an impressive selection of international beers. Even Stuart’s Bar in the Hotel St. Michel saw a brief revival when “Ladies’ Half Price Tuesdays” attracted ladies in dresses and men attracted to ladies in dresses. 

It can be argued that the emergence of Coral Gables as a civilized place to enjoy good fellowship over a shared bottle or two originated with the magic bartending skills of Lorraine Gutierrez at The Globe and Chris Shipp at Fritz & Franz – both of whom served their apprenticeship at John Martin’s, the true heart of the Coral Gables drinking experience.