With a storied past, Fox’s Lounge is South Miami’s secret drinking hole
By James Broida
If you drive south on U.S.-1 from Downtown Miami, you probably won’t notice Fox’s Lounge. Formerly known as Fox’s Sherron Inn, the legendary bar (founded in 1946) had a long and lurid reputation as “Miami’s Darkest Bar” before it closed in 2015, well before the pandemic. It was known as a place where you could meet someone incognito.
In August of this year, Fox’s reopened. Still, unless you know it’s there, you probably won’t notice the single outline of a fox head on the otherwise blank wall facing U.S.-1. To find the place, you’ll have to drive down Red Road into South Miami and cut back along 74th Street. Then you will see the neon sign, which hangs over a door simply marked “Enter.” It has that vague feeling of “For Madmen Only” -the neon sign from Hermann Hesse’s novel “Steppenwolf.”
Inside, you will find that it’s, well, dark. A back-lit bar provides most of the illumination for the relatively small space, which consists mostly of red-leather booths and a few tables. There is a hallway that leads to another room with a few larger booths, past a vintage jukebox.
The vibe here is just what the new proprietors, Lost Boys & Co., hoped to achieve. “We believe in resurrecting the past, in keeping the direction straightforward, and in connecting the world through sacred geometry,” states the website for the company, which is also behind the rebirth of the Mayfair Grill in Coconut Grove, along with the pub-like Lost Boy Dry Goods (Downtown Miami), and the Joliet and Tropezón bistro restaurants (both Miami Beach).
We visited Fox’s on a Thursday evening, since Thursday is prime rib day (Friday is French dip day). The menu is what you would expect in the way of bar food – cheeseburgers, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, chicken wings, French fries, onion rings – but with some elevated “dinner” dishes, like steak au poivre ($39.95), fresh pan-fried yellowtail ($24.95), and chicken marsala ($24.95), and with some unusual twists, like breaded frog legs with garlic butter ($19.95) and sauteed fresh mushrooms ($7.95). If you get there before 7 pm, the classic cocktails (martini, Manhattan, cosmopolitan, Old Fashioned) drop from $14 to $7.
We ordered the prime rib, which was nicely seasoned (vs. the usual pink slab) and the fried chicken, which was surprisingly good – crisp on the outside, not a lot of wasted breading, and hot and juicy inside. We also ordered a couple of vodka martinis, and in no time sank into a very pleasant trance, the soundtrack playing classic rock, the air filled with just enough chatter to keep your own conversation lost in the noise.
Fox’s is not for everyone, drawing an eclectic collection of guests from all walks. But on a warm evening, its dark, cold interior is something from another time, miles away from the glitz and glamour of Downtown Miami, a worthy watering hole that provides a discrete escape.
