Killer Hurricane or No, Regulars at Alabama Jack’s Aren’t All Shook Up

As poet Robert Frost said, taking the road less traveled can make all the difference.

Instead of following the pack of weekend fun-seekers straight down U.S. 1 to the resort hotels, marinas and tourist traps of the Florida Keys, some drivers take a sharp left at the Last Chance Saloon, just outside hurricane-trampled Florida City.

After several miles of little but windblown Australian pines, the two-lane road swerves into “downtown Card Sound,” a motley collection of waterside squatters’ shacks, houseboats and, then, Alabama Jack’s.

It’s usually described as a country bar, but it’s not always clear what country.

Tattooed bikers, burly and bearded, mingle with well-scrubbed dancers, designer-clad boaters and folks in cowboy dress who are all ears for the twangs of the Card Sound Machine band. But they mix together as easily as the trademark ham-and-lima-bean soup, conch fritters and crab cakes served steaming, to be savored with long-neck beers or soft drinks.

“I’ve been coming here for years, and I’ve never found anything else like it,” said Charlie Ramsey, sitting in on guitar with the Card Sound Machine. (The name is a takeoff on Gloria Estefan’s Miami Sound Machine band.)

“It’s out of the city, but it’s not too far out. Everybody gets along,” Ramsey added, struggling somewhat, as do other regulars, to explain the success of Alabama Jack’s. “It’s a unique institution.”

The institution took some pounding from Hurricane Andrew, not so much physically, but to its carefree atmosphere.

“It was a weird feeling,” said Thelma Sykes, recalling her first trip to Alabama Jack’s to escape the sound of chain saws and the sight of downed trees at her Sunniland home after the Aug. 24 hurricane.

“You cried, because you saw people again for the first time after the hurricane. You didn’t know what had happened to them,” said Sykes, a weekend regular since 1967.

Hurricane Andrew blew away the collection of clippings, including a write-up in Bon Appetit magazine, that provided some documentation of the hazy history of Alabama Jack’s.

Hurricanes have shaped and reshaped Card Sound and Alabama Jack’s over the years. The powerful killer hurricane of 1935 (they weren’t given names then) wiped out the road and then-flourishing settlement on the strip of land between Card Sound and the Florida Straits.

Alabama Jack’s was established in the 1950s by Jack Stratham, a retired construction worker with a country streak. Before Jack’s, both chronologically and geographically, is Fred’s Place--also known as “the Tiltin’ Hilton” because of its sloping dance floor--but it was closed down two years ago after state inspectors came calling.

Alabama Jack’s was rebuilt after heavy damage from Hurricane Betsy in 1965. The shaky wooden floor that sagged as tables hopped up and down to Saturday night dancing was replaced with a concrete deck and kitchen.

There were changes in ownership, and ups and downs in reputation, over the years. Then Phyllis Sague arrived from the Midwest in 1981 and fell in love with the view of calm sea, jumping fish and herons stalking among the mangroves and picture-book sunsets.

“This is still down to Earth. This is the real Florida,” said Sague, now the owner.

Andrew knocked down fencing and other trim, along with some roofing and a satellite dish at Jack’s.

The restaurant began serving sandwiches and sodas to utility workers replacing the storm-shorn poles lining Card Sound road within weeks, and the official reopening was in early October.

With thousands of south Dade County residents relocated to the north after the hurricane, business slowed.

“Some have a lot farther to come, so we only see them once a month, instead of every weekend,” Sague says.

The hurricane also swamped at least five Card Sound houseboats and ruined the stilt home of 84-year-old squatter Ruby Stern, who lives a few yards from the $1 toll bridge that crosses Card Sound to North Key Largo.

Stern, who two decades ago moved into the shack left by construction workers who built the new toll bridge around 1968, used to frequently show up at Alabama Jack’s to grab the microphone for some spirited singing or colorful stories.

Sague and Sykes got together in December and delivered a trailer home to Ruby, who had been sleeping in a tent on the rocky ground.

“She’ll never leave,” said Sague, who has a house in south Dade but usually spends weekends in quarters built over the kitchen at Alabama Jack’s.

Her three children have helped her run the place. These days, daughter Raquel, a University of Miami nursing student, and her boyfriend help wait on customers.

“We try to keep it all in the family,” Sague says. “We’re a big family here.”

She has somewhat tamed Alabama Jack’s former rowdy reputation, emphasizing “Family Day” on Sunday when clogging, the foot-stomping country dance form, is featured.

“We haven’t had a fight here in years,” she said.

A former Roman Catholic schoolteacher, Sague says she doesn’t need to threaten anyone with a ruler to the knuckles.

“You have to get along with people to come here,” she said. “We treat everybody nicely, and they respect the place.”

Her favorite recent example of the gentler-than-they-look clientele: A television reporter gingerly approached a menacing-looking biker, tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he’d like to say anything.

The biker turned, stared into the camera, then smiled: “Hi, mom!”