Gramps Getaway, a slice of authentic Miami on Virginia Key, is fighting to preserve its place in the Florida sun.
From my seat on the deck at Gramps Getaway, the popular outdoor restaurant and bar overlooking Biscayne Bay and the Rickenbacker Marina, I can see my eight-year-old son exploring the marina’s docks with two friends.
They duck past a row of red mangroves where spotted rays forage and herons nest, then wander back to Gramps – dodging daytime drinkers beneath the restaurant’s chickee hut – to reach an interactive hook-and-ring game by Miami artist Justin Long.
It’s a scene familiar to many of us who grew up in South Florida, free to explore the ocean’s edge and the mix of cultures and personalities that define a certain Miami vibe.
Sadly, Gramps Getaway – a place that embraces local culture — may soon become just another Miami memory.
Gramps owner Adam Gersten is fighting to preserve the waterfront where his restaurant opened in 2023, in the former Whiskey Joe’s location on Virginia Key.
He’s asking Miami voters to vote “no” next week on Miami Referendum 3, the proposed redevelopment of the Rickenbacker and Marine Stadium Marinas by Virginia Key LLC.
“Anyone reasonable and rational who loves this city knows that being cautious with this land is important,” Gersten says.
Read more: Virginia Key: A Great Deal or a Public Giveaway?
Virginia Key LLC is a partnership between Connecticut-based RCI Group, which developed the Miami Beach Marina, and Texas-based Suntex Marinas.
Ten years ago, the companies won a City of Miami bidding contest to redevelop 27 acres of public land including the two marinas. City officials don’t support the deal today but were compelled by a judge to let voters decide the fate of the project.
RCI Group and Suntex are running a “Vote Yes to Save Virginia Key” campaign.
Gersten, who chairs the city’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board (PZAB), has become a prominent voice in the “vote no” campaign to defeat Referendum 3, together with the Rickenbacker Marina’s current operator, Aabad Melwani.
In the days leading up to the election, Gramps Getaway has been papered with signs that say “Protect Gramps Getaway” and Gersten himself has rallied opposition at other Miami venues, including Over Under, The Dead Flamingo, and Las Rosas.
The energy at these events has been high, and the rooms have been packed with scientists, boaters, and artists — people who are not always politically aligned but who have come together to support Gramps Getaway in this fight.
It’s not that Virginia Key LLC wants to kick Gramps Getaway out exactly.
The developers have offered Gersten the opportunity to reopen as part of their $80-million redevelopment – a project they say will expand public access to the waterfront with a 2,600-foot landscaped baywalk along the marina basin.
The project also promises to deliver a renovated public boat ramp, new dry-storage buildings, wet slips, floating docks, facilities for paddlers and rowers, and approximately 8,000 square feet of commercial space.
Read more: Virginia Key’s Waterfront Promises Come with Fine Print
But for Gersten, a fourth-generation Miamian, the fight is about protecting an authentic Miami for locals, tourists, and his children – and giving locals a say in what happens next. Gersten isn’t saying this stretch of waterfront can’t be improved, but rather that locals and marine scientists should have a say in how it’s developed.
“People understand the value of undisturbed space is rising. They’re looking at it differently as they watch their city get paved over, and specifically pristine waterfronts like this,” Gersten says. “Virginia Key is an ecological gem.”
Nick Perni, the head of marine operations at the Field School, which offers training courses to marine science students, agrees.
“Gramps has been our home ever since they moved in,” Perni said. “We feel like they’re preserving the last of the places that hold that local Miami feel. We all know how rapidly these seem to leave the city.”
Perni is concerned the new development might cause significant harm to sensitive marine habitats and to the animals living there. Perni operates the research vessel Garvin out of Rickenbacker Marina, which was displaced from its former home in Coconut Grove after Hurricane Irma.
On a typical afternoon at Gramps Getaway, you might find Miami native Hilary Bell, aka DJ Hiltronix, spinning records under the chickee hut.
The thing she most treasures about this place is the family atmosphere, and how everyone, no matter their background, feels at home.
“At Gramps, you have that open policy where everyone is welcome. No judgy, pretentious rich Miami people — who seem to be taking over our city a lot. I get it. Everything has to change, but there are some things that you have to preserve and keep local,” she says. “Locals want a place they can go where they don’t have to pay a valet, a cover charge, and $20 (for) beers. We need a spot like Gramps.”
Gersten’s motto for both his former Gramps venue in Wynwood, which closed in December, and Gramps Getaway on Virginia Key is: “We’ve been here forever since the day we opened.” Because timelessness is part of the concept and practice.
“When you travel, you don’t go to the new waterfront place that looks like the new waterfront place in my town, you go to the place that’s old and has traditions,” Gersten says.
Gramps Getaway manages to carry over traditions and a certain wild Florida ethos from other venues like the former “outlaw” bar Jimbo’s on Virginia Key with its coolers of beer, bocce ball court, and bikers.
For the past 20 years, since the days of Whiskey Joe’s, the South Florida Freedivers have been meeting at the Gramps Getaway location.
There are also new traditions being made that reflect the art and music scenes that have grown in Miami over the past twenty years.
For instance, artists Coral Morphologic whose medium is live coral just launched the Miami Coral Club there, a monthly event with live music and educational opportunities.
When Miami native and knitwear designer Caitlin Farradas moved back to Miami from Los Angeles a couple of years ago, Gersten invited her to organize a group fashion and drag show inside the restaurant’s Mangrove Ballroom during Miami Art Week.
“I don’t have the resources to do that on my own,” she says. “I think it’s important to highlight Gramps not just as a business, but as a community space that breeds that level of community, it creates this warmth.”
She’s worried about how losing Gramps Getaway might affect the community, as well as the singular culture and landscape of the city.
“We’re basically risking our mangroves for a yacht mall,” Farradas says. “It feels insane to build over that. Not everything needs to be developed.”
Adam Gersten and I served together for eight years on the Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board (PZAB). While we sometimes had our differences, I am 100% in agreement when he says: “People understand the value of undisturbed space is rising. They’re looking at it differently as they watch their city get paved over, and specifically pristine waterfronts like this. Virginia Key is an ecological gem.”
Going back 40 years, I’ve enjoyed the early morning calm and beauty of rowing on the Basin in front of the Marine Stadium. Many a time dolphin and an occasional manatee would surface next to our boats. In addition, as a coach of high school boys and girls there, I’ve participated in regattas like the Miami International that packed the Marine Stadium before Hurricane Andrew got it (wrongly) condemned by the City as “unsafe.”
If this new plan passes, with the Basin packed chock-a-block with hundreds of mooring blocks, that will be the end of rowing competitions and maybe even of any place to row at all. Same for the Dragon Boats paddled by cancer survivors, and the tri-athletes competing there. Goodbye to calm and beauty.
They won’t be coming back unless enough people vote “No” on Referendum 3.