Shorty’s barbecue has been sold. Here’s what that means for the restaurant’s future
Shorty’s Bar-B-Q stands as a 70-year-old anachronism on the ever-busier U.S. 1, but it appears time has finally caught up to the South Miami favorite.
Shorty’s longtime owners have sold the property to apartment management company Atlantic Pacific Companies and Florida Value Partners real estate developers for $14.5 million, a spokeswoman for the restaurant said. The deal, which includes a neighboring body shop, assures Shorty’s a five-year lease and an offer to include the barbecue joint in future plans when the site is redeveloped.
“We’re not going anywhere. The business will stay. We’re not closing down,” Shorty’s Marketing Director Bayley Ramos said.
The late Shorty Allen (who lived to 104) founded the restaurant in 1951, at 9200 S Dixie Hwy., around a simple idea and even simpler menu: chicken and spareribs that both take exactly 2½ hours to cook, a meal for the masses. Communal checkered picnic tables, an American flag and black and white photos of Edward Lewis “Shorty” Allen on the wall told the story of an unpretentious business.
That’s why after it burned down in 1972, locals who loved the inexpensive meals and low-key setting returned, eventually with their children and grandchildren in tow. Even after Allen sold it in 1980 to Clifford MacBroom, Paul Skoric, Rick Wallace and the late Stewart Greenstein, it remained a Miami staple for the 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 isn’t sealed. Ramos said the new owners are Shorty’s fans and hope to keep a restaurant even after redevelopment.
“They’re passionate about keeping Shorty’s to live on,” she said. “Nobody’s 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 put off any celebration because of COVID concerns. They plan to celebrate the milestone in 2022.
This story was originally published January 4, 2022 at 4:10 PM.
