This was one of many Royal Castles in Dade County and this newer style version was located in the southwest corner of 79th Street and 27th Avenue. This site was formerly occupied by the parking lot for the famous Frank 'n Bun drive in restaurant further to the right. Funland Park was located just to the south of this Royal Castle on 27th Avenue, and the property is now a big parking lot in the satellite photo if you click on "view map" above. I occasionally dined at this Royal Castle while working at Sears in late 1965/early 1966 and again in the early 1970s at Northside Shopping Center on the northwest corner of this intersection. My first dining experience in a Royal Castle was on NE 2nd Avenue and 79th Street in the mid-1950's and I fell in love with them. The early Royal Castles were not air-conditioned and I remember flies galore while eating there. The counter and grill guys were ex-servicemen and many had tattoos on their arms. They either wore sailor hats or white paper hats along with white t-shirts with the sleeves rolled up with cigarette packs tucked in. I remember the grill guys smoking while they were flipping burgers and mashing out the grease. If they kept their cigarette ashes out of the burgers it was a miracle. A lot of these guys were real characters and it was entertaining to watch them and listen to them.

Fortunately for me, Royal Castle built an air-conditioned restaurant on Palm Springs Mile in west Hialeah after we moved out there in 1957 and I was able to savor their yummy burgers, birch beer, honeybuns, chocolate pies and jelly donuts for years. Their breakfasts of fried eggs, grits and toast were also great. I remember the hamburgers at 15 cents, birch beer at a nickel and later 7 cents, and great jelly donuts and honeybuns for 10 cents. The jukeboxes on the counters were cheap at a nickel as I recall.

Real progress came to the chain when they air-conditioned all of their restaurants and started hiring women in the later years.