Fort Lauderdale: Cap's Place (May 2004, December 2006)

My spouse and I dined at Cap’s Place twice: once with three family members for dinner in December 2006, and once at a rehearsal dinner for a wedding in June of 2000. In 1928, Cap’s Place, was established. Originally known as Club Unique, the restaurant was a popular supper club and gambling casino in the 1930s and 1940s. Cap’s Place was owned by Captain Theodore Knight, one of the earliest settlers in the Lighthouse Point area and a colorful character in Broward County’s history. With the advent of Prohibition in 1919, Cap became involved in the profitable business of rum running. Cap picked up whiskey in Bimini, a tiny island in the Bahamas about 50 miles from Florida, and brought it back to his base near the Hillsboro Inlet. This location was ideal because of its isolation, easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, and protection by heavy vegetative growth. The powerful Hillsboro Light served as a beacon during the dark nights when Cap made his trips from Bimini. Cap’s liquor runs were always successful and he never got caught. He was a skilled navigator, had faster boats than the Coast Guard and several area residents suggest that his brother flashed warnings from the lighthouse when the coast was clear. The contraband whiskey came packaged in burlap bags, known as “hams,” which Cap tied to buoys with a long rope and sank in Lake Placid. When a customer ordered a bottle, Cap rowed out to a buoy and filled the order. By 1926 Cap decided to settle near Tom at the Hillsboro Inlet. He built a small store on a spit of land in Wahoo Bay just opposite the lighthouse. In 1928 he moved inland approximately half a mile to the present site on a peninsula bordered by the Intracoastal Waterway on the east and Lake Placid on the west. Cap bought a barge in Miami for about $100 which reportedly was used by Flagler during the construction of the Overseas Railroad to Key West. With Al’s help Cap beached the barge by floating it ashore on a high tide. The barge was stripped of its iron fittings and the cabin and machinery were removed and sold as scrap. Dade County pine from the newly opened Pompano Lumber Company was used to build an enclosed structure on top of the barge. By 1929 Club Unique was open for business. The restaurant was an immediate success and lived up to its name in several ways. One reason for its popularity was the delicious and unusual food. Club Unique offered the freshest seafood: all types of fish, crab, lobster, grouper chowder, and green turtle steak. A specialty of the house, hearts of palm salad, was made from Sabal Palm trees imported from the Everglades around Lake Okeechobee. Turtle egg pancakes were served with guava jelly, and homemade seagrape jelly accompanied hot rolls. In addition to an outstanding menu, Club Unique offered guests the added attraction of gambling, which was illegal in Florida at the time. Originally the restaurant was accessible only by water. Until 1953 the main entrance to the restaurant was from Hillsboro Beach, to the east across the Intracoastal. Guests flashed their car lights to signal an employee who paddled a rowboat across the waterway and transported them back to the restaurant. Once guests arrived at the island retreat, they were ushered into dining rooms filled with souvenirs and artifacts collected by Cap. Fishnets served as curtains and parts of ships, rope, driftwood and harpoons hung haphazardly from the ceilings. The walls were lined with shark jaws, rattlesnake skins, and Cap’s collections of mugs and coins. Al built the bar, made of bamboo from the Everglades and polished wood from the decks of ships. The bar is dominated by a large, carved wooden bow-sprit from a Spanish galleon, and other curios scavenged from the sea. As much a part of the original decor as the wooden bow-sprit, Cap’s Place has a personality all its own. It has stood through the pioneer days, Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, the Depression, world wars, and times of peace. Cap’s Place echoes the voices of the many celebrities and local folks who have dined there. Even the buildings represent early settlers’ ingenuity in adapting to the climate with locally available materials. Known as Vernacular architecture, this style relies on the builder’s experience to create a useful and practical building. The Lighthouse Point area has been extensively developed, but fortunately the ambience surrounding the restaurant remains much the same as it was seventy years ago, when Pompano was just a whistle stop on Flagler’s railroad.