Following the sale of the Shorty's Bar-BQ restaurant. What will your future be?
Shorty's Bar-BQ remains a 70-year-old anachronism on the increasingly busy US 1, but it seems time has finally caught up with the South Miami favorite.
Shorty's owners sold the property to apartment management company Atlantic Pacific Companies and developer Florida Value Partners for $14.5 million, a spokeswoman for the restaurant said.
The deal, which includes a neighboring auto body shop, secures Shorty's a five-year lease and an offer to include the steakhouse in future plans when the place is rebuilt. “We are not going anywhere. The business stays. We are not going to close," said Shorty's Marketing Director Bayley Ramos.
Creator, the late Shorty Allen (who lived to be 104) founded the restaurant in 1951, at 9200 S Dixie Hwy, around a simple idea and an even simpler menu: chicken and ribs that took exactly 2½ hours to cook , a food for the masses.
Picnic tables, an American flag, and black-and-white photos of Edward Lewis “Shorty” Allen on the wall told the story of an unassuming business. So after it burned down in 1972, locals who loved the cheap eats and low-key atmosphere returned, eventually with their children and grandchildren. Even after Allen sold it in 1980 to Clifford MacBroom, Paul Skoric and Rick Wallace, it remained a Miami establishment for nostalgia and Shorty's Sauce.
Those owners expanded, opening locations in Davie, West Miami and Doral, the last of which they sold in October 2021 for $6.1 million, Ramos said.
Shorty's fate is not sealed. Ramos said the new owners are fans of Shorty's and hope to maintain a restaurant even after redevelopment. “They're passionate about keeping Shorty's alive,” he said. “No one is trying to change anything in the near future. … It's not something we're ready to let go of yet.”
The restaurant turned 70 in 2020, but the owners postponed any celebration due to COVID concerns. They plan to celebrate the achievement in 2022.
Miami Daily
Author: Patricia Chung 7:04 am