Whatever happened to White Castle and Royal Castle, two hamburger kings

Lining up at Royal Castle opening in 1969 - Tallahassee
State Archives of Florida/Slade

 

By Jane Feehan

Not an in-depth history of two iconic burger joints, this post answers “whatever happened to.” White Castle and Royal Castle operate today. Find out where below.

White Castle

White Castle, established in 1921, is touted as the granddaddy of burger joints. Founded with a borrowed sum of $700 by Walter A. Anderson and E.W. “Billy” Ingram in Wichita, Kansas, the company established headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. It was incorporated as White Castle System of Eating Houses Corporation. The company operated at the vanguard of the carry out concept with its invitation to “Buy ‘em by the sack.” The company also patented the use of holes in their square burgers for fast cooking. Sliders (only 12 cents) served as mainstay of the business.

Billy Ingram (died 1966) moved to Miami where he opened two stores in 1958 (perhaps a third). The first one was located at Flagler and NW 27 Avenue. The other unit operated near NE 163^rd Street. By the mid 1960s competition ramped up with McDonald’s, Burger King, Lum’s, Neba, Arby’s and others claiming market space. By 1967, White Castle closed in Florida. Supply chain issues were to blame, according to news accounts.

Today the company operates more than 300 units throughout the U.S., mostly in the Midwest and Northeast. It resumed expansion in 2015 after a 56-year hiatus with a store in Las Vegas. News for White Castle aficionados in Florida: their largest store (4,500 sf) opened in 2021 in Orlando off Interstate 4. Good move; it serves more hamburgers (some plant-based) than any of their other stores. Some say it’s the biggest burger joint in the world.

Royal Castle

William D. Singer (died in 1988) founded Royal Castle in Miami in 1938. By the 1960s, they had 150 locations in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio. In 1969, Royal Castle with its round burgers (and breakfast items) ranked third in the nation for fast food or “short order” restaurants with 175 units.

In 1969, John Y. Brown, through his Performance Systems, Inc., bought the chain, which had gone public, for about $9 million. Brown had fast food experience. He purchased Kentucky Fried Chicken from its creator Harland Sanders in 1964 for $2 million. Today it’s worth more than $19 million. Performance Systems also owned Minnie Pearl’s Fried Chicken when it acquired Royal Castle.

Rapid expansion took a toll on Performance Systems. Royal Castle dissolved in 1975 (Brown served as governor of Kentucky 1979-1983 with wife and Miss America, Phyllis George at his side. He loved South Florida where I met him during the 1970s; he died in 2022).  

Good news for Royal Castle fans: ONE remains in Miami at 2700 NW 79^th Street. Owned and operated for years by James Brimberry and his wife, Josephine, the store was purchased by their grandson James in 2019.

For indepth information, see  Burger Beast.

Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

Miami Herald, Nov. 13, 1958

Fort Lauderdale News, July 18, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, May 21, 1966

Miami News, March 29, 1968

Miami Herald, March 2, 1969

New York Times, Jul 15, 1988

Miami Herald, July 15, 1988

Tampa Bay Times, Nov. 26, 2019

New York Times, Nov. 25, 2022

White Castle

BurgerBeast.com

 

Tags:  Florida restaurant hisory, White Castle Hamburgers, Royal Castle Hamburgers

Wolfie's: memories of good and plenty and ...

Wolfie's
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

During the 1960s, before malls became popular high school hangouts in Fort Lauderdale, Wolfie’s Restaurant on Sunrise Boulevard was the place to be seen. The deli was a winner among all ages with its overflowing bowls of tiny breakfast Danish, mouth puckering dill pickles and crunchy coleslaw, overstuffed pastrami sandwiches and creamy New York cheesecake. 

For those of us who spend a lot of time in Fort Lauderdale, the restaurant’s demise is but one of many markers on the road of long gone and forgotten … until someone who moved away while it was still open asks “whatever happened to Wolfie’s?” A Publix now sits near that once-hallowed spot.

Wolfie’s history is complicated—except for its beginning. In the beginning was Wilford or “Wolfie” Cohen. He got his start in the restaurant biz working as a kid in the Catskills. He came to Miami Beach during  the late 1930s and bought Al’s Sandwich Shop at 23^rd Street and Collins. He made it a popular place—one that Al Jolson and Milton Berle visited. Customers seeking a glimpse of celebrities and a good meal flocked to Cohen’s restaurant.

But Cohen set his sights on a larger empire. He sold his place (with Wolfie's name rights) at four times what he paid for it to Meyer Yedlin in 1948.  Wolfie opened another winner, Pumpernick’s, in the 1940s and sold it in 1955, according to a Miami News obituary.  When Cohen died at 74 in 1986, he had also owned the Bull Pen, Mr. Mahzik, and the Rascal House (restaurant names should be unforgettable he once said). At the time of his death, he owned only the *Rascal House, which he left to his daughter actress Robin Sherwood. (Sherwood appeared in Brian de Palma’s Blow Out, in Death Wish II opposite Charles Bronson and in other films.)

Meyer Yedlin opened Wolfie’s in two Miami locations, at Lincoln Road and Collins Avenue and another at 163^rd Street in North Miami Beach. He also opened one in St. Petersburg in 1953 (sold it in 1955) with partners and incorporated Fort Lauderdale Wolfie’s in 1958.  Joseph Sloane, a partner in the St. Petersburg venture, was also listed as owner of the Fort Lauderdale Wolfie’s. As I said, this ownership history gets complicated.

As tourism grew in South Florida so did the national reputation of Wolfie’s, especially among New Yorkers. In 1961, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled that the Wolfie’s name could not be used by a deli in Brooklyn; only the two restaurants in Miami had rights. The Brooklyn partners claimed they did not steal the name; “Wolfie” was a nickname earned by one of them for a reputation as a ladies’ man. The judge didn’t buy it.  Yedlin (who died about 1960) or his relatives had their hands in various Wolfie’s, thus the permitted use of the name at some other locations.

In 1968, during the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Chef Craig Claiborne wrote in The New York Times that Wolfie’s, open 24/7, was worth a visit but to conventioneers he recommended the breakfast spread at Pumpernick’s, by that time out of Wolfie Cohen’s hands.

Long after Wolfie’s closed in Fort Lauderdale—the corporation involuntarily dissolved in 1984—it was announced that Wolfie’s Deli Express was set to open a number of franchises in South Florida. I’m not sure about the genesis of this corporation or whether it was even related to the Wolfie’s we all knew and loved.  In 1998, the president of the company claimed this was to be the “biggest news” in franchising since McDonald’s. Anybody hear of it?

In 2002 Wolfie’s closed on 21^st Street in Miami Beach. The last owner of the one on Lincoln Road was Samuel Kaye who died in 2012, but I'm not sure when that Wolfie's shut its doors; the same fate was dealt the restaurant on Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. International residents and exotic palates have replaced the taste for Jewish borscht, bagels, lox and cheesecake but not the fond memories woven into Fort Lauderdale and Miami history.  And it all began with Wolfie Cohen ...  Copyright 2015. Jane Feehan

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*Rascal’s closed in 2008, and is currently the site of Epicure Market.

Sources:

St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 18, 1953

Miami News, Sept. 21, 1958

The Reading Eagle, Feb. 13, 1959

The New York Times, Jan. 22, 1961

The New York Times, June 10, 1961

Evening Independent, Aug. 13, 1964

Miami News, Oct. 7, 1986

Schenectady Gazette, Jul. 3, 1987

Boca Raton News, June 3, 1998

Tags: Wolfie's, Wolfie Cohen, Fort Lauderdale restaurants in the 1960s, Miami Beach deli restaurants, Fort Lauderdale history,