What is it about Flanigan’s that makes us crazy? Let’s look at the South Florida spot
Why are we so obsessed with Flanigan’s?
Is it those lunch specials? The ribs? The big green cups? The nautical look? All the sports on the TVs?
Or maybe it’s just that the bar and grill is a South Florida thing.
Flanigan’s even has rolled out a line of merchandise. And a few years ago, it won the Miami Herald’s most popular restaurant contest. Customers say it’s a chill place for comfort food and drink.
But it hasn’t always been smooth for the company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the mid-1980s and had to change the original name of its new restaurants in a legal case.
Let’s take a look at some Flanigan’s photos and history from the Miami Herald archives:
The founder
The food
The green cups
The customers
The workers
Flanigan’s through the years
▪ Death of the founder: (Published Jan. 29, 2005) When Joseph “Big Daddy” Flanigan was a U.S. Navy crewman on a mine sweeper in the 1950s, he couldn’t have predicted his future success. Even with his passion and enthusiasm for work, he could not have dreamed that his rugged, bearded face would become the symbol of Flanigan’s Bar and Grill - a South Florida icon. Flanigan, 75, died at his home in Sea Ranch Lakes after a two-year battle with cancer. Flanigan, a former stockbroker and graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, opened the first Big Daddy’s Liquors in Hialeah in 1959, teaming up with two former clients from his stockbroker days.
▪ Bankruptcy: Starting in 1985, Flanigan’s spent two years under the protection of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. It emerged in December 1987, but went on to lose money for four straight years. Flanigan’s kept up the reorganization process all along. It disposed of most of its lounges and package stores out of state and placed more emphasis on the restaurant side of the business.
▪ Birth of a restaurant: (Published Nov. 13, 1989) The sign outside Conch Key Joe’s Seafood Bar and Grill is graced with a portrait of a smiling Irishman, a reminder of the restaurant’s pedigree. The face is Big Daddy Flanigan’s. Until recently, the West Davie Boulevard establishment was a Big Daddy’s cocktail lounge and liquor store. But now it is a Big Daddy’s with a difference —namely food service, from oysters on the half-shell to shrimp scampi and baby-back ribs. The Conch Key Joe’s restaurant concept is a moneymaker, says Joseph G. Flanigan, the real-life Big Daddy. It’s the answer to his company’s post-bankruptcy problems, he believes.
▪ Name controversy: (Published Dec. 12, 1989) Flanigan’s Enterprises must change the name of its Conch Key Joe’s restaurants as the result of legal action by a Martin County restaurateur. Fort Lauderdale-based Flanigan’s must remove the name “Flanigan’s Conch Key Joe’s Seafood Bar and Grill” from 10 restaurants within the next 18 months, and must refrain from using the name for any new restaurants, according to an out-of- court settlement reached Friday. The company will simply call the restaurants Flanigan’s, said Chairman Joseph G. Flanigan. The settlement ended a two-year-long legal battle by Jensen Beach-based Conchy Joe’s Restaurant Inc., which registered the name Conchy Joe’s Seafood with the Florida Secretary of State in 1985. Under the terms of the settlement, Flanigan’s must also pay nearly $75,000 in attorney’s fees for the Jensen Beach company. Publicly held Flanigan’s, owner of Big Daddy’s cocktail lounges and package stores, has built its string of South Florida restaurants as part of a tough fight to regain profitability after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection two years ago.
