Part of Miami’s charm is waterfront watering holes. And they are vanishing | Opinion

Miami is getting a new and improved Shuckers Waterfront Bar & Grill. That’s what they tell us, anyway.

It’s part of a redevelopment wave hitting North Bay Village, a series of waterfront communities connected by bridges. The land along the 79th Street Causeway — where Shuckers has long enjoyed one of the best, low-key views in town — is prime property. Last week, the North Bay Village Commission approved a $300 million plan to knock down the low-rise Best Western Hotel that now houses Shuckers and put a 30-story high-rise in its place.

Change is inevitable, something Miami knows better than most places. And North Bay Village no doubt will benefit from the new construction. We don’t blame commissioners for inking the deal.

But places like Shuckers, where you can go in shorts and flip-flops for a cold beer and gaze out over the water — they’re a dying breed in South Florida. Scotty’s Landing in Coconut Grove was another, now replaced by a perfectly nice, more upscale waterfront restaurant where you can Do it for the Gram all day long.

Cool, cool. No judgment. OK, maybe a little. But the point is this: Not everything has to be glammed up to be good. Development is important for the economy, but so is preserving the character of what brought people to Miami to begin with. Stroll out onto the Shuckers dock at sunset. It’ll remind you why you live here.

Deck accident

Of course, there was that time Shuckers’ deck collapsed and dumped 100 or so customers into the water as they were watching a Miami Heat comeback in an NBA Finals game against the San Antonio Spurs. That was in 2013, and it was serious. People were hurt. It made national headlines. A lot of Heat players had been to Shuckers, and they were concerned. But Shuckers came back from that, too. A year later, it reopened with a rebuilt deck and a lot of fanfare.

The hotel, around since the 1970s, has been through its own share of transitions. It was a Runaway Bay, a Holiday Inn, an Inn on the Bay and now a Best Western. Shuckers didn’t open until the 1990s, but it quickly became a landmark. You can see anyone there, the famous and the infamous and a whole lot of regular people. And how many of us have taken out-of-town visitors there for a fish sandwich and a bit of unsubtle bragging? You don’t even have to say a word: You just sit outside in T-shirts on a January day, squinting in the sun as boats pull up to the dock and watch the envy creep across their faces.

And we’re not sorry. Miamians need that moment; it’s what gets us through the sweat-soaked hurricane months and horrible traffic.

A new location

The Montreal real-estate investment firm planning the redevelopment project told the Miami Herald that Shuckers fans shouldn’t worry. A new, temporary location for the bar and restaurant will be found, and then a new Shuckers eventually will open. Construction won’t start until the end of this year or the beginning of the next.

We’re glad they’re rebuilding Shuckers. Miami has a lot of waterfront, but not a lot of waterfront restaurants, let alone semi-affordable ones.

We know it won’t be the same. But we hope they don’t change it too much.

This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 4:54 PM.