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1943 Courtesy of Alvin Lederer

1943 - an ad for Royal Castle restaurants with 6 sidewalk open-air locations in Miami at the time

Miami, Florida


Thank you to Alvin Lederer for contributing this great old image of a wartime ad for our beloved Royal Castles in Miami with a photo of one of their old sidewalk restaurants.

For Google search purposes I am listing the Royal Castle restaurant addresses below:

7957 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami
202 W. Flagler Street, Miami
76 NE 1st Street, Miami
1173 W. Flagler Street, Miami
1370 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami
132 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami

The ad states that they were selling 3 million hamburgers a year which equates to an average of 500,000 burgers per restaurant. They were open 365 days a year so that equates to 1370 burgers being sold daily per restaurant or $68.49 in sales just for burgers at 5 cents each.







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Guest 14-Aug-2017 03:45
We used to visit my grandparents every Christmas in the early 60's in Hollywood Fla. We used to go to a Royal Castle all the time but can't remember which one. My grandparents lived off of Hollywood Blvd by the interstate. Anyone know where the nearest one was?
Randy 06-Jan-2015 04:34
Jack, if you worked the 6th Ave and 125st RC in the 60s then I ate the food you cooked. By then we had moved to NMB but my mom, grandmother and aunt would go to Mae's Beauty Salon almost every Sat. I would always volunteer to go as well. First the salon was just a few doors down from your RC and two, there was a junk shop located there called Brownie's. This guy had huge bins full of old comics, a nickel each. Btw I remember some today are worth thousands of dollars. Anyway, a couple of hamburgers and a shake and I was ready to go hunt comics. Those were some of the best days of my life.
Don Boyd18-Feb-2014 07:18
Jack, thank you for refreshing our memories and giving us more facts about working at Royal Castle. My favorite ones were the Little River location when I lived in that area and the new Palm Springs Mile location in Hialeah starting in 1957 when we moved to a new home out there on the edge of civilization. I loved Royal Castle so much that in the late 50's my dad would offer to take us to any restaurant in town for my birthday and I picked Royal Castle at least two years in a row, much to everyone's consternation because they were adults and they didn't love the Castle as much as I did. : )

Don
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Jack Dallas 17-Feb-2014 17:34
Update: Larry Singer was the son of William Singer, the founder of Royal Castle. I misspoke. The mind is a terrible thing to wast.
Jack Dallas 17-Feb-2014 17:27
I worked mainly at the Royal Castle on northeast 6th avenue just north of 125 street and was regularly loaned out for different periods to the RC's on Normandy Isle, 71st and Collins, downtown Miami, Little River and 86th and Biscayne Blvd. Larry Singer founded the first RC in Little River. When Singer started numbering his stores the Little River location was #2 and he made his second location in downtown Miami, #1. Go figure.

Everyone worked for minimum wage which, in 1962, was $1.15 hr. As a "trainee" they could pay you $1.05 hr and give you monthly raises of a nickel until you reached the minimum. I remember working 60 hour weeks where I made more than the "manager". Most employees were high school students or "old timers" who might have difficulty getting a job elsewhere.

In the 60's burgers were 15 cents, birch beer was a nickel, fresh squeezed orange juice in a frozen mug was a quarter, coffee was ten cents and 35 cents got you two eggs, grits, two slices of toast, butter and jelly. You could have any flavor shake as long as it was chocolate. The burger buns arrived fresh daily from the RC bakery along with pies, donuts and danish. The burgers were made with reconstituted onions and Heinz pickles. The meat had to be 50% fat as it started out double the size of the final product. Most of the grease ended up in the bun (that's what made them so good). Canned soup and homemade chili rounded out the menu.

The stores never closed and I remember working through one hurricane where we couldn't lock the front doors to keep the wind out so we tied an apron through the handles. RC had never hired women before 1960 and the first was hired begrudgingly as a favor. She was Ruth Pearlman whose husband had worked for Larry Singer at his first store. Shorty Pearlman was disabled so they hired their first woman. Larry turned the business over to his son just when Burger King and McDonald's were making Miami home. This was the beginning of the end.

My favorite RC was the one across from the 71street beach on Collins. The bikini had just been "invented" and showgirls in teeny weeny bikinis and high heels were regular customers. Nothing stirred the imagination like a bikini clad showgirl bending over to order at the take out window.
Guest 06-Sep-2013 01:03
Our N. Miami Royal Castle was on SR 441 and 191st Street. Daddy and I used to walk 5 blocks to get some burgers and birch beer. I remember the crunch of the tiny diced onions on the burgers. It was a walk up window on the north side, then later you could sit inside too, then even later they added air conditioning. Each table had a shiny chrome and red juke box and we could play 5 songs for a quarter.
Don Boyd06-Feb-2012 16:15
Randy, I have changed the description to include the words "open-air" in it. The photo depicts an open-air location and I distinctly remember the one in Little River was open-air in the early through late 50's because my dad took me there for breakfast after church at St. Mary's and I loved that place. Fortunately for me, Royal Castle opened an air-conditioned restaurant on W. 49th Street and 6th Avenue on Palm Springs Mile (the first store to open on the mile) which was near our new home in west Hialeah and I must have gone there a thousand times over the years.

Don
Randy 06-Feb-2012 10:31
I don't know if my memory is right on this but I think the RCs downtown were old ones, open to the air as we used to say. If some of you remember back a ways, Lums were open air and even were some 7 11s, complete with a garage door that would close the store. Anyway, I remember eating at an RC real early in the 1960s, maybe on Flager. Miami was much different then, no hispanics and most people had a definite Southern accent. I remember the RC was open to the air with only a few stools to sit on. I think I was six years old at the time and it was a school holiday. Back then you could smell the big bakery cooking, I think it was Holsums and there was a really neat cafeteria down there, maybe Lubys? Nothing, but nothing compares to a meal at RC. I know others have said it here, but I too would give anything to go back then and stay there.
William "Bill" Cotton. 04-Aug-2010 00:53
I was born in Coral Gables. South Miami, where I lived was so small. It didn't have a hospital. I remember when there was a Royal Castle in Perrine. It was located at S.W. 124thst & US ONE. I loved their burgers along with the ice cold birch beer
Don Boyd10-Jan-2010 02:10
Thank you, Guest. I guess my memory was off by a few blocks for some reason and unless I hear otherwise I'll have to presume that we ate at the one just north of the Rosetta. I would say we started eating there once in a while in 1953 when I was 6 and older. Darn, did I love Royal Castle back then!

Don
Guest 09-Jan-2010 17:31
The Rosetta Theater was just north of 79th Street (7929) and the Royal Castle was just north of the Rosetta Theater. When you came out of the Rosetta you walked right in to the Royal Castle. There was never one south of 79 street that I can remember and the ad states the address as 7957 NE 2nd Avenue which would put it right there next to the Rosetta. I went to movies every Saturday morning starting in 1952 at the Rosetta. Then a Royal Castle hamburger and Birch beer for a nickel each. Now that was good living.
Gerald Shenkman 25-Dec-2009 17:50
I attended Riverside Ellimentary, Edmond Gong was one of my classmates there!
( Elsie Delaney Principal and Ms. Standback my teacher) Ada Merrit Jr. High
( Albert Issacs Principal @ Miami Sr. High0,Teachers: Charles English, Delta Cross,
Erensteen Tate. Can't remember study hall teacher, but we all loved her and feared her at the seme tjime. I lived at 1119 SW 1st St. and almost every day had something at the Royal castle on the corner of Flagler st. and 12th avenue, across the street from the Fuirestone storr. Walked to Riverside, Rode Bicycle to Ada Merrit and took the bus to Miami Sr. HIgh. Those were GREAT dayes for me.
Don Boyd30-Jun-2009 14:12
Thanks, Lee, now I'm beginning to wonder if my memory is screwed up. It was definitely on NE 2nd Avenue around 79th Street and it was very likely north of 79th Street like you say. For some strange reason my memory thinks it was south but I was under 9 years old when we went there. I really didn't develop an addiction for Royal Castles until I was 9 and we moved out to west Hialeah and had a new air-conditioned one on Palm Springs Mile that I fell in love with and spent all my money on.

Don
Lee Martines30-Jun-2009 07:51
Don.......The one by the Rosetta was just North of 79th Street, and I frequented it starting in 1947 through the fifties, and sometime during that time it changed from an open-air store to a glass front, and I think it only had about six stools. Sorry, but I sure don't remember one South of 79th Street.
Don Boyd23-May-2009 11:28
Thanks for that recollection Lee. Since you remember the one by the Rosetta, by any chance do you remember another Royal Castle on NE 2nd Avenue, on the east side of the street, and just south of 79th Street in the early/mid 1950's? It was a small one like the restaurant pictured. I have memories of going there and no one has mentioned that location so I'm looking for reinforcement of what I remember. The address of one under the above photo has one just north of 79th Street but that was 1943 and they could have moved between then and the early/mid 50's when I went there. Thanks.

Don
Lee Martines 23-May-2009 09:38
As a Miami kid in the forties and fifties, the Royal Castle just north of the Rosetta Theater in Little River was a favorite place for "3 burgers and a birch" after the movies. At 35 cents, you couldn't go wrong, but when the burger price jumped to 11 cents, it just didn't seem right.
Guy Vinson 22-Feb-2009 12:20
Oddly, one of my favoite memories is of the coffee mugs. they were thick and tapered in a way that hot coffee would always run down your chin.
Rachelle S. F. MHS '60 16-Feb-2009 02:16
I remember a Royal Castle or White Castle around SE 1st. in downtown Miami. You could get a bowl of chili for 20 cents. It was a good snack after shopping downtown, before catching the no. 11 bus to go home in the late 50's.
MEL 11-Feb-2009 23:34
GRADUATION FROM CITRUS GROVE-WHERE DID WE GO? ROYAL CASTLE OF COURSE. I ATE 20 AND DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE. I STILL MISS YOU-ROYAL CASTLE.
Guest 31-Dec-2008 20:50
I think I personally ate close to 1,000,000 of those littel burgers! The closest one to our house was at 27th Ave and U S 1. Seems like I remember that a "Mr Singer" owned them and lived in a big house on the Coral Gables waterway you could see from the traffic cirlcle where Le June Rd meets Old Cutler Rd
Ed Pomerantz
Don Boyd12-Dec-2008 07:55
You are so right, Lowell. It was my favorite restaurant as a kid, regardless of the fancy places that I was dragged along to.

Don
Lowell Conlan 09-Dec-2008 23:05
Most of us who grew up in Miami in the 50's could not have survived with out that tiny burger and a birch beer.