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Don Boyd | all galleries >> Memories of Old Hialeah, Old Miami and Old South Florida Photo Galleries - largest non-Facebook collection on the internet >> Miami Area RESTAURANTS, Drive-Ins, Bars, Lounges, Liquor Stores, Clubs, Strip Joints, etc. Gallery - All Years - click to view > 1950's - the interior and staff of the Turf Bar and Grill on Ocean Drive, Miami Beach
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1950's From a postcard

1950's - the interior and staff of the Turf Bar and Grill on Ocean Drive, Miami Beach

6? Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Florida


This was located two doors north of the northwest corner of Biscayne Street and Ocean Drive, across from the South Beach Fishing Pier to the east and the Miami Beach Kennel Club parking garage to the south. I had a few excellent lunches there in the mid-70's on my reserve drill weekends at the nearby Coast Guard Base on MacArthur Causeway. It was better to pay for a good meal than eat the absolutely lousy free meals at the base at the time.

In the 1960's there were a number of small stores to the north of the Turf Bar including a surf board shop or two and a bagel bakery where one could buy freshly baked bagels for a nickel each. They did a booming business. The south half of this block, including the Turf, was bulldozed years ago and it has been a vacant lot ever since. What a waste of prime real estate.


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Virginia Giritlian 03-Feb-2024 16:27
Does anyone remember the TURF SHOP which was near 71st Street and Harding Avenue - on the north side of the street. This had horse gifts - horse statues, bookends, jewelry - the turf being the race track - long gone by now. This was there in the early to mid-1960's i believe - I had a horse pendant purchased from there that was lost at Greynolds Park stables where I rode as a young teen.
Ellen Siepser 04-Aug-2023 06:37
I loved this place! I used to go for lunch from Beach High around 1967-8. Then, at night for drinks, we’d drive over from University of Miami for drinks. Never forgot it. Great food, cool bar.
Guest 15-Aug-2018 01:30
The correct address for the Turf Pub is 22 Ocean Drive. It's clearly visible in a scene from the 1983 movie "Baby It's You" (towards the end of the movie). I have a screen cap and can send it if you like. Just to the north of the Turf Pub was the "Play House Bar", and north of that was the only building in that block which still survives: 36 Ocean Drive (currently empty and for sale or rent, before that most recently was a Chinese restaurant, and before that Taverna Opa). The rest of the block has been all consumed by a new seven story condo building called "1 Ocean".
Guest 28-Nov-2017 18:33
Lums was on the corner across from the Track . Chicken Unlimited was next to Lums. There was a leather shop, a surf board shop, a pinball arcade, gino's pizza and the Turf Pub.
Danny Shepherd 30-Jul-2016 19:03
Loved the London broil at the Turf Bar, there was a Lums just south of there on the corner of Biscayne and Ocean Drive. If I'm not mistaken there was a leather shop by the bagel store; you could get your custom made Jesus sandals or a nice suede vest with long fringe.
Don Boyd19-Nov-2015 17:19
Jack, sorry for the delay but there is a photo of the block behind some characters in a photo that is in the Individuals & Small Groups Gallery. It's the closest thing I have to a photo of the bagel bakery. The photo is at: http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/image/113361145 . Those freshly baked bagels were delicious and I consumed a ton of them in the 1962-66 time frame.

Michael, thank you for posting your memories of your dad managing the Turf Pub. Those were great times indeed and we were fortunate to live when we did because things are totally different now and not for the better.

Don
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Michael Hedding 18-Nov-2015 22:28
My father managed the Turf Pub in the late 60s until 72 and I remember going to work with him. The restaurant was an icon back in those days with celebrities and Jai alai players frequenting. I loved going to the bagel shop and remember passing the bar where there were always boxing posters promoting upcoming fights on the door. Great times as a kid!!
jack 26-Jul-2014 23:03
i don't know how long since anyone viewed or posted to this entry, but i am intimately familiar with this time and place. i worked at the lums (and ran bets to the dog track), drank at the turf bar (and a host of other places), and half lived on those nickel bagels. i was looking for an image of the beach bagel bakery when google got me here. somehow y'all forgot another institution from that era, the airstream trailer snackbar located facing the beach on the ground level of the dog track parking lot. i worked there, if you could call it that, for a couple of years, for the owner, jack diamond.

some of the best years of my life were in my mid twenties right there.
Jeff 06-Dec-2013 07:00
Lums was on the corner, and between Lums and the Turf was one of the first Chicken Unlimited restaurants. The bagel shop was Beach Bagel Bakeries, and they also made some incredible pretzel bagels... I think in the 60s they were two for 15 cents...

One of the little shops was the relocated Gino's Pizza. When Gino sub-let part of the Cameo Sundry Shop he made some of the best pizza I'd ever tasted. After a dispute with the shop's owner (Marty), he moved to that South Beach locale by the Turf. Because space was limited he switched from fresh dough and a large over to a small convection oven and frozen pizza dough. It was never the same.

Next to the surf shop (in the 70s) was a small bar...
Don Boyd06-Aug-2013 01:12
Thank you Martha. My memory must be fizzling out because I swear the Turf was on the corner when I ate there a few times in the mid to late 1970's.

Don
Guest 05-Aug-2013 23:53
Lums was on the corner of Ocean Dr & Biscayne ST. The Turf Bar was 2 doors to the north.
Don Boyd05-Aug-2013 04:43
Good question, one that I don't know the answer to but I'll ask my friend Martha Pierson who knows a ton about Miami Beach. I was last in the Turf Bar & Grill in the 1977-78 time frame and didn't frequent that area much in the 80's. I'll let you know or have Martha post her comments here.

Don
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Canebrake 05-Aug-2013 01:37
This eventually became Lums then, right?
Guest 28-Aug-2012 04:04
Hey Ron did your father play the piano if he did then I saw him perform .
He was great always had a huge smile on his face!!
Ron Saams 15-Jul-2012 00:32
Thanks for these memories. My dad worked at the Turf Club, mid 50's i think, and the Fountainblue and Sherryfontinac. He did a 1 man show, Hap Happy. Those were the days.
marsha B 16-Mar-2009 21:17
Martha you are absolutely correct. This was the most terrific place and the back room where all the writers of the Herald, the Miami News and the Beach Sun used to meet was terrific.
Martha Pierson 30-Sep-2008 19:14
You can thank the creep Thomas Kramer the developer for tearing down the whole
block including Lenoard Hotel, which in the 90's he made into a nightclub and did so much damage to the structure that the hotel had to be torn down. The hotel survived hurricanes but not Kramer.