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Iconic Miami Maitre d' Roy Garret Dies At 92: Ruled The Wait At Joe's Stone Crab

Patrick Farrell
/
Miami Herald
Roy Garret on his last night as maitre d' at Joe's Stone Crab in Miami Beach in 1997.

Few Miami Beach restaurants are as iconic as Joe’s Stone Crab. And for more than a quarter century, Roy Garret was Joe’s iconic maître d’.

Garret, the man who ruled the Stone Crab with stone calm, died this week.

READ MORE: Miami Herald Obituary: Roy Garret, Larger Than Life Maitre d' at Joe's Stone Crab, Dies at 92

As many a frustrated Miami Beach diner knows, Joe’s Stone Crab does not take reservations. Waits for a table at the revered restaurant can be long. So being the maître d’ at Joe’s – the guy who handles which customers sit where and when – can be one of South Florida’s more stressful gigs.

But New York native Garret handled the throngs of VIPs and tourists with the firm poise of an English butler. He was sometimes called the most powerful man in Miami.

“Roy never lost his cool, no matter how many people were there," says Judy Goupee, who started working at Joe's the same day Garret did in 1971.

"He remembered everybody that were returning customers. If it was over two-hour wait: ‘Go to the movie; come back and we seat you.’ That was his famous line – with his Brooklyn accent.”

Garret retired in 1997; Goupee is now Joe’s head cashier. She recalls how Garret ushered stars like Don Johnson right to a table without making other waiting customers feel slighted.

“Don Johnson used to come here all the time when they were filming ‘Miami Vice,’ " she says. "You know, he took care of them. If you wanted to be seated at Joe’s and you knew Roy – you knew you got the ‘in.’ ”

Goupee says few people knew Garret often traded his maître d’ tuxedo for overalls – on a small farm he owned and loved outside Miami.

Garret died on Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach. He was 92.

Tim Padgett is the Americas Editor for WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. Contact Tim at tpadgett@wlrnnews.org
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