Gerald Ensley: Magic happened when Brown Derby opened its doors

(This column was first published in the Tallahassee Democrat on June 19, 2011)

Nick Kapioltas died Memorial Day weekend in Palm Harbor. That won't mean much to you unless you lived in Tallahassee from 1974 to 1989. But if you did, raise a glass: Kapioltas, 79, owned the Brown Derby chain of restaurants in Florida.

His first Brown Derby was in Tallahassee. And for so many of us — customers and employees — the city has never had a more fun restaurant. It was an establishment where the food, the entertainment, the people, and the experience were like nothing Tallahassee had ever seen.

"There was a magic to the place," agreed Paul Harvill, a state domestic abuse counselor who spent seven years as a Brown Derby host and server. "For the years it was there, it was an institution."

The Girves Brown Derby was a massive, 16,000-square-foot restaurant behind the Tallahassee Mall. It was torn down in 1992 when the Tallahassee Mall built a new wing. The location is now a parking lot on the south side of AMC theaters.

When it opened in 1974, it was a game-changer in Tallahassee. In a town of traditional family-run restaurants, the Brown Derby was among the first corporate-owned, non-fast food restaurants in Tallahassee.

The Derby, as it was called, sat 500 people. It was not uncommon for there to be a two-hour wait on weekends — with customers watching the electronic signs for their numbers to be listed.

But what a treat awaited. The Brown Derby was the first Tallahassee restaurant with a large salad bar. It theatrically dimmed restaurant lights for mood at 9 p.m. — and at the same time brought out a free antipasto of meats, cheeses and olives. It was the first to have a nonsmoking section.

The menu offered steaks, seafood, ribs and other entrees — at reasonable prices, even for those days. The famous Loving Couple of a lobster tail and filet mignon was $11.95. The equally famous prime rib was $9.95. A seafood platter was $8.50. A carafe of wine was $2.95.

Everything was top-of-the-line quality, served by an army of personable waiters and waitresses. The Brown Derby had more than 150 employees — which were needed on weekend nights when it served as many as 2,500 customers.

It was the favorite spot of FSU football coach Bobby Bowden, Gov. Bob Graham, and Florida legislators. It was where college students took their parents, couples went on first dates and families went for a special night out.

"If there was a secret, it was good old customer service and good quality food," said former manager Bob Guido. "We didn't consider people customers, we considered them guests."

The Brown Derby chain was founded in Ohio by Kapioltas' cousin, Gus Girves. In the early 1970s, Girves gave Kapioltas franchise rights to Florida. Kapioltas chose Tallahassee for his first location, figuring the capital city was the best place to start. Kapioltas lived in Tallahassee for a year or two, before moving to St. Petersburg and eventually opening 14 Brown Derbys in Florida.

"It's been very satisfying working with conservation," said Guido, a longtime project manager for the Trust For Public Land, who spent 13 years working for Kapioltas. "But (before that), the Brown Derby was the best job I ever had."

That's a sentiment echoed by the hundreds of Brown Derby employees, who bonded like few do in a workplace. The employees loved the challenge and frantic pace of what one publication ranked as the fifth busiest restaurant in the nation. Employees partied together after hours. Many employees met future spouses at the Derby.

In 1998, employees held a reunion. Today, Harvill runs a reader forum on Tallahassee.com, where former employees and customers trade memories.

"For the '70s, it was an incredibly diverse workforce. Black, white, Christian, Jew, Muslim . . . it was a real melting pot," wrote former server Jeff DeVore. "I run into some of the old-timers and it's always a pleasant memory."

No small part of the magic was the Luv Pub lounge. The bar had live music every night, bringing in regional as well as local bands. It offered free hors d'oeuvres at happy hour, free popcorn around the clock and giveaways for events such as Monday Night Football. John Denver came in for a drink after giving a Tallahassee concert; Orville Redenbacher once came to promote his popcorn; FSU football great Ron Simmons spent a stint as a bouncer.

Tallahassee attorney Marie Mattox was a cocktail waitress who remembers crowds would get so big bar manager Bart Bailey would block the entrance and shout, "No more, we're full."

"It was an absolutely remarkable place, with a lot of special people," Mattox said. "I'm not sure I'd give up my lawyer job (to go back) but it would cross my mind."

Some still wonder why the Derby closed. In a 2008 interview, Kapioltas said it was because the era of big restaurants passed. Guido acknowledged increases in workers' comp, liquor taxes and wages drove up the expenses for big restaurants. But he said Kapioltas also got involved in other ventures and was slow to refurbish and update his restaurants, which hurt business.

In 1988, the Girves company sold the Florida Brown Derbys to Kapioltas, and he renamed them Kappy's. In 1989, Kapioltas closed the Tallahassee Brown Derby, beginning a downhill spiral that saw all Florida locations closed by the mid-1990s.

"Nick was a good businessman. But toward the end, (the Brown Derbys) became run down, which was kind of a bummer," Guido. "Even today, I have people tell me how much they loved the Brown Derby."

And still miss it.

Gerald Ensley was a reporter and columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat from 1980 until his retirement in 2015. He died in 2018 following a stroke. The Tallahassee Democrat is publishing columns capturing Tallahassee’s history from Ensley’s vast archives each Sunday through 2024 in the Opinion section as part of theTLH 200: Gerald Ensley Memorial Bicentennial Project.

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