This is about Joe Sonken's Place being sold in 1994.
Legendary Restaurant Shuts
Onetime Reputed Mob Hangout Closes After 45 Years
May 5, 1994|By DEBORAH RAMIREZ Staff Writer
HOLLYWOOD — If the walls could talk at Joe Sonken's Gold Coast Restaurant and Lounge, they might whisper Cosa Nostra.
Too late now. The 45-year-old Hollywood landmark and reputed watering hole for mafia honchos has served its last plate of Chicken Vesuvio and intrigue.
The pale gold restaurant overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway closed its aqua porthole doors on Friday.
The place now belongs to Miami Subs founder Gus Boulis, who bought the eatery at 606 N. Ocean Drive for an undisclosed price.
Jerry McDonald, a Plantation restaurant businessman, confirmed that he is trying to lease the property and reopen it before next year. He submitted plans to the city of Hollywood and wants to reopen as a "water-theme" restaurant by Thanksgiving.
Gold Coast had been in business since 1948, keeping police and FBI agents busy with surveillance activities and investigations of mob activities.
"If you were looking for members of organized crime, that's where you would find them," said Steve Bertucelli, a former organized crime chief for the Broward Sheriff's Office and in Dade County.
Some of the restaurant's patrons read like a list from Who's Who in the underworld.
The infamous included John Gotti, the Gambino family boss serving a life sentence for murder and racketeering, and Meyer Lanksy, the mob's late "financial genius" and reputed father of money laundering. Other mafia types were regulars in the red leather booths, listening to strolling guitarists sing Return to Rome.
The mafia bosses and their lieutenants who frequented Gold Coast did more than savor la dolce vita.
The restaurant served as their message center and meeting place, law enforcement officials said. Dinner conversations spanned narcotics, illegal gambling and fraud, according to police accounts and FBI files.
One investigation involving Gold Coast helped put Anthony "Guv" Guarnieri behind bars, Bertucelli said.
Guarnieri, a capo or captain in the Pennsylvania-based Bufalino crime family, went to prison in 1987 for racketeering and dealing in stolen property. But Gold Coast owner Joe Sonken was never caught doing anything other than feeding and entertaining hoodlums and racketeers.
Sonken, who visited the restaurant every day with English bulldog Bozo at his side, died in June 1990 at age 83. He was never convicted of a crime.
The restaurant outlived its reputation. After Sonken died, the mob went elsewhere and business in general declined.
"It's time for somebody else to come along and try something new," said Scott Springer, the owner of a car rental business across the street, who has been eating at Gold Coast for 20 years.
"[The restaurant) ran its course."
