"Miami Tavern Bombed," blared the headline on the front page of the final edition of the September 22, 1967, Miami News. "A bomb knocked in the rear of Happy's Stork Lounge on the 79th Street Causeway early today while hoodlum Anthony (Big Tony) Esperti was sitting at the bar with his girlfriend," began the account, which bore the byline of William Tucker. "It was the tenth recent bombing here in gang terrorism that North Bay Village Police Chief Earl Mitchell said goes back to the '20s when they would do anything to emphasize a threat."

The "they" to whom Chief Mitchell referred were the mobsters who frequented the restaurants and bars of North Bay Village in the 1950s and 1960s, when the archipelago of manmade islands inserted between the mainland and Miami Beach's Normandy Isle was a trs chic outpost in Dade County for fine dining and drinking. And it wasn't only wise guys who were drawn to the glitter and glamour of what is today a sleepy and underdeveloped bedroom community of 8,159 inhabitants situated in the heart of Biscayne Bay. Back then, the east-west causeway that slices through North Bay Village was lined with upmarket steakhouses and watering holes that lured top-drawer celebs like Judy Garland, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, and his fellow Rat Pack carousers. One of Ol' Blue Eyes' wingmen, Dean Martin, the boozy crooner from Steubenville, Ohio, opened a pub called Dino's in the Village in the mid-'60s and christened it the Show Place of the South.

An empty parking lot now marks the spot where Martin's tavern once catered to Hollywood's rich and famous. Right next to it is the last surviving vestige of an era when North Bay Village was the South Beach of the 1950s, and South Beach was better known as God's waiting room for the blue-rinse set. That relic is Happy's Stork Lounge and Liquor, a seedy, smoker-friendly dive bar that was licensed in 1952 to an underworld figure named Stefano Randazzo and lives on as a beloved mecca for the economy-class tippling set of North Bay Village, the Normandy Isles neighborhood of Miami Beach, and Miami's Upper Eastside.

A perennial contender for the title of the region's best dive bar, Happy's proudly retains its throwback ambiance and eminently affordable beers and cocktails. (A double-rail vodka and tonic lightens a patron's wallet by a mere $6.) But nothing is forever in this world, and sometime in April, Happy's is slated to move out of the strip-mall premises it has occupied for more than 70 years and into a more spacious and far brighter retail space 1,600 feet to the west.Whereas Happy's has always been a liquids-forward establishment, standard-issue bar snacks and appetizers will be on offer at the new location (which not all that long ago housed an upmarket taco restaurant), and cigarette smokers will be banished to an outdoor patio.

Nevertheless, 61-year-old Steven Inerfeld, who, in partnership with his kid brother Howard acquired Happy's in 1993, promises that the relocated bar will be "newer, better, and cleaner" than its storied predecessor.

Some longtime elbow benders are dubious of the so-called improvements.

"I'm apprehensive," says Kelly, a 64-year-old retired bookkeeper from Brooklyn and avid smoker who began frequenting Happy's in 2002 with her then-husband after they moved into an apartment nearby. "There's going to be food. And it's not just the food. It's going to be very different it's just not going to be the same."

Howard Inerfeld, 58, likes to think of Happy's as a real-life version of the cozy Boston bar that starred in the 1980s hit TV sitcom Cheers. "We're on a first-name basis with our customers," notes Belarusian bartender, Alexi. "We know what they like."

Passing the bar: Happy's has been a beacon on the 79th Street Causeway for nearly 70 years.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

"Mac's is way more touristy, whereas this is a 100 percent neighborly bar," opines Patrick Harrington, a thirtysomething database programmer from Maryland who began frequenting Happy's not long after he moved into a nearby condominium building in January 2009 and now serves as the bar's operations manager. "We drove two people home last night to make sure they got home safe because they are in the neighborhood. You don't get that at Mac's."

By their own admission, the Inerfeld brothers never would have budged from the bar's current address had it been up to them. But in May 2021, a Miami residential development behemoth called the Shoma Group bought the corner property where Happy's now stands for $7.4 million and ponied up another $8.4 million for the capacious adjacent parking lot. The company announced plans to raze the strip mall and, in its place, erect a 19-story condominium tower that will house 333 units and a Publix.

The Shoma Group's vision is one of several development projects that threaten to transform North Bay Village over the next decade into a blend of Brickell's gridlocked avenues and teeming sidewalks and the corridor of high-rises that tower over Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach. In that sense, Happy's date with the wrecking ball can't be shrugged off as the inevitable fate of an expired relic from a bygone era. The bar's imminent uprooting is another cautionary tale highlighting the headlong plunge into hyper-development consuming great swaths of Miami Beach and Bay Harbor Islands, not to mention Miami's mainland bayfront.

"I'm honestly heartbroken because you get a taste of old Miami here where people who don't make a lot of money can go and relax, and it doesn't have to be a place that is all glitz and glamour," says 39-year-old schoolteacher Deniece Williams, gesturing from her barstool perch. "But I see North Bay Village turning into what many other neighborhoods like Brickell and downtown Miami are turning into."

The municipality's vice mayor, Richard Chervony, has already seen the village evolve into something quite different from the bland suburb he moved to 30 years ago. The Havana-born physician was drawn to North Bay Island which, unlike the other two isles that also make up North Bay Village, was zoned exclusively for single-family dwellings. Back then, Chervony says, the neighborhood was mostly Jewish and English-speaking.

The ethnic homogeneity of yesteryear has yielded to a predominantly Latin population composed of U.S.-born Hispanics and Latin American immigrants garnished with a splash of Brazilian nationals to complete the demographic cocktail.

Now 72, Chervony openly acknowledges the pro-development stance he has habitually adopted during his years as an elected member of the village commission. But he doubts whether all the development projects he and his colleagues on the commission have okayed will bear fruit during his lifetime.

"I'd love to see it happen, but I don't see it happening. None of these properties has a shovel in the ground," he tells New Times. "What I have seen is a lot of individuals purchasing these empty lots and selling us on the idea of developing them. But they keep flipping them instead."

"He was a grumpy old man," recalls Howard Inerfeld, who, along with his sibling Steven, met Goldlust in 1993 when they were negotiating the sale of the business. That he had the nickname "Happy" was wholly ironic in its provenance, Howard asserts. "Like a fat man is called 'Tiny' or a bald man is called 'Curly.'"

"Like a fat man is called 'Tiny' or a bald man is called 'Curly'": RIP Bernard "Happy" Goldlust, who lent the bar his nickname.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

"That was the air he would put out, in kind of a secretive way," says the 66-year-old land surveyor. "He was very observant and street smart, big-time. And if he knew something about the mob, he wouldn't tell you."

Much of the vintage patina that differentiates Happy's from more conventional dive destinations like On the Rocks in North Beach dates to Goldlust's 37-year tenure as its owner. The cash register nestled among the liquor bottles on the bar's western side has a distinctively 1950s look. The package-liquor side of the business boasts a black rotary telephone that operates on a landline and is straight out of that same decade. (It proved its worth when a hurricane knocked out local cell networks for days on end.)

Goldlust commissioned a sepia-toned mural that covers much of the eastern wall of the bar and depicts drinkers from different walks of life enjoying beverages and one another's company. Look closely, and you'll note that the elegantly coiffed woman clad in a mink stole and clutching a cigarette holder in her right hand is pockmarked with two small-caliber bullet holes, one just to the left of the part in her blond hair, the other slightly to the right of her left nostril.

Look closely at the mural and you'll note that the face of the elegantly coiffed woman is pockmarked with two small-caliber bullet holes.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

Goldlust survived his wounds. But by the early 1990s, he'd grown weary of the entrepreneurial life. He told a North Miami-based cousin of the Inerfelds that he was looking to unload the bar that bore his sobriquet, and a deal was done.

Steven Inerfeld (tending his bar) promises that the relocated Happy's will be "newer, better, and cleaner" than its storied predecessor.

Photo by Jade Finlayson

But fear not for the long-term prospects of the Inerfeld family business. Until recently, none of the brothers' three adult children had expressed even the slightest interest in inheriting the taps one day. That changed late last year when Steven's only child, physical therapist Brittany Inerfeld, pronounced herself an heiress-apparent, eager to learn the finer points of operating a liquor business whose hours are 10 a.m. to 5 a.m., 365 days a year.

"I grew up going to the bar as a kid, and it was torture," the 30-year-old Long Island native recalls. "But as it got closer to the reality of it closing, I realized how badly I didn't want to lose the place. I just want to keep the legend alive for my dad because everyone knows him from Happy's. I don't see it happening anytime soon, but whenever he feels the need to slow down, I'll help pick up some of the slack."

The barflies of North Bay Village and environs will drink to that.

Read the original:

Last Call at the Original Happy's Stork Lounge - Miami New Times