Audio By Carbonatix

About 100 people gathered at Gramps Getaway on Virginia Key Monday, September 21, to rally around the waterfront hangout as its future becomes entangled in one of Miami’s most closely watched November ballot questions.

Holding signs and gathering beneath the palms and chikee huts overlooking Biscayne Bay, supporters came out against City of Miami Referendum 3, which would authorize a long-term lease and redevelopment of about 27.5 acres encompassing the Rickenbacker and Marine Stadium marinas.

For Gramps owner Adam Gersten, the fight comes less than a year after Miami already lost one Gramps.

From Wynwood to the waterfront

For 13 years, Gramps was the kind of place Wynwood used to have in abundance. It was weird, unpretentious, and unmistakably local. There were cheap drinks and pizza, drag shows and comedy, sweaty concerts and DJs, with seemingly no particular interest in becoming whatever the rest of Wynwood was becoming around it.

Eventually, Wynwood changed anyway.

When Gersten closed Gramps in January after 13 years, no landlord had kicked him out. The decision was his, but it came after years of watching the neighborhood transform from an arts district filled with galleries, independent bars and creative spaces into one increasingly defined by luxury apartments, national brands and polished hospitality concepts.

“Everything’s more expensive; it’s a story everybody knows,” Gersten told New Times ahead of the closing.

Fortunately, Gramps’s end in Wynwood wasn’t entirely the end of Gramps.

In 2024, Gersten opened Gramps Getaway at Rickenbacker Marina on Virginia Key, taking over the former Whiskey Joe’s waterfront space. Here, mangroves, boats, open skies, and Biscayne Bay replaced the murals and crowded sidewalks. Gersten has since called Getaway “Gramps in its final form” and “everything I ever wanted.”

Now, less than a year after the original Gramps closed, its successor finds itself at the center of another conversation about development and what Miami risks losing as the city changes around it.

What is happening to Gramps Getaway?

On November 3, City of Miami voters will decide Referendum 3, which asks whether the city should lease approximately 27.5 acres on Virginia Key to Virginia Key, LLC for an initial 45-year term, with two possible 15-year renewals.

The ballot language calls for a minimum annual guaranteed rent of $2.2 million, with escalations totaling approximately $203.98 million over the initial term, plus six percent of gross revenues. It also calls for approximately $80 million in privately funded investment to redevelop the marinas, including boat storage, restaurants, retail and public parking.

And Gramps Getaway sits within the property.

Gersten and current marina operator Rickenbacker Marina Inc. have challenged the deal in court. Their lawsuit argues, among other things, that Gramps’ current lease would be terminated if voters approve the proposal.

The developers dispute the idea that Gramps is being pushed out. The campaign supporting Referendum 3 says the restaurant will not be asked to leave and argues the project would improve aging marina infrastructure while keeping the land publicly owned.

That leaves Gramps in an unusual position: Both sides say the restaurant can have a future on Virginia Key, but they disagree over what happens to it under the proposed deal.

About 100 supporters rally behind Gramps

That uncertainty brought about 100 people to Gramps Getaway on Monday for a “Save Gramps” rally opposing the referendum.

Gersten told the crowd his opposition is not about preventing improvements to the marina. His concern, he said, is the deal itself and what it could mean for the property. “We want people to vote on it. We want people to vote no, because it’s a bad deal, and it’s an old deal,” Gersten says.

Gersten argues that the property and marinas are worth significantly more today than when the deal was negotiated. At the same time, he said he supports investing in the waterfront.

“We are not against that at all. In fact, we’re for it,” Gersten says. “The future is whatever you want it to be. We will be part of that process moving forward. But we have to vote no first in order to get there.”

Former Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a candidate on the November ballot, also attended the rally and urged voters to reject Referendum 3. Taddeo raised concerns about the potential environmental effects of redevelopment and pointed to the mangroves surrounding the property.

The city’s ballot language describes the proposed redevelopment as “environmentally sensitive” and says Miami would retain ownership of the land.

Miami native and musician Harold Trucco, who performed at the original Gramps, was also among those opposing the proposal. “Enough already, we have to draw the line somewhere,” Trucco proclaims.

Miami’s love of Gramps Getaway

For many at Monday’s rally, the debate was not only about lease terms or marina infrastructure. It was about protecting a place that has become part of their Miami routines.

Few places left in Miami let you pull up by boat, order a frozen drink and smoked fish dip, listen to a DJ under a chikee hut, and look across Biscayne Bay at the Miami skyline without feeling like the view has been packaged and sold back to you.

Gramps Getaway is one of them.

For New Times contributor Victoria Stanzione, who grew up on Key Biscayne, Virginia Key was never a destination. It was simply part of home. She passed it every time she crossed the Rickenbacker Causeway: the mangroves, marinas, beaches, Marine Stadium, and stretches of Biscayne Bay that somehow remained a little scruffier and less polished than the Miami rising around them.

That familiarity helps explain why Gramps Getaway makes sense here. The waterfront hangout embraces the unpolished character that has long distinguished this stretch of Virginia Key from the city across the bay.

The referendum does not involve all of Virginia Key or Historic Virginia Key Beach Park. It concerns the marina properties along the Rickenbacker Causeway. Still, the debate has raised broader questions about development along an island valued for its waterfront, wildlife, mangroves, and proximity to Biscayne Bay.

Can Miami improve a place without changing what makes it special?

Miami has confronted this question before: How do you improve a place without polishing away what made people love it? For Gramps, that question feels particularly loaded.

The original survived for 13 years while Wynwood transformed around it. When it finally closed, Gersten told New Times there was “no mourning” because Gramps was moving forward, with Getaway carrying much of its DNA.

Now, Getaway faces its own change.

Miami voters will decide November 3 whether the proposed redevelopment and long-term lease move forward. What that ultimately means for Gramps remains contested by Gersten and the developers behind the project, but the debate has already become about something larger than the future of one waterfront bar.

For the people who gathered there Monday, and for Miamians like Stanzione who grew up with Virginia Key as part of the landscape of home, it is also a question of how much the city can change while still leaving room for the places that feel unmistakably like Miami.

Gramps Getaway is one of those cherished places.

Gramps Getaway. 3301 Rickenbacker Cswy., Key Biscayne; 305-465-2482; grampsgetaway.co.