Plans point to new future for site of city landmark
Malio's Steak House has served the stars, but now owners want the city to rezone the parcel for a bank and office building.
By JANET ZINK
Published September 16, 2004
TAMPA - For more than 35 years, it has been a place where power brokers meet, sports figures celebrate and Hollywood stars dine.
Malio's Steak House, a South Tampa restaurant and nightclub, has a past as colorful as a Florida sunset.
The monumental picture gallery on its walls says it all: Rudolph Giuliani, Muhammad Ali, Roger Clemens and George Steinbrenner, to name a few. Steinbrenner has his own booth equipped with a telephone at the restaurant.
Now Malio's future is in question.
James Shimberg Jr., an attorney for the restaurant, last week asked the city to rezone the property so a 40,000-square-foot office building and 4,500-square-foot bank can be built in its place. The Tampa City Council is scheduled to review the request Dec. 9.
Malio's owners wouldn't confirm there's a buyer for the property.
"Until there's a substantial agreement in place there's not too much we can say," Shirley Iavarone said Wednesday.
She owns the restaurant with her son, Derek; her husband, Malio; and two of his classmates from Hillsborough High School, Dennis and Ray Sanchez.
Rumors of a possible sale have been swirling for a year. There were talks with Walgreens, Shirley Iavarone said, but the company never came up with an adequate offer for the property, which the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser values at $1.5-million.
The zoning documents filed last week indicate something more attractive to Malio's owners might be in the works.
That prospect has the restaurant's faithful wondering where to go next.
"It's been an institution in Tampa for so long," said Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella, adding he heard the restaurant might reopen in a smaller place.
"Many of us have been going there forever and ever," said former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco. "That place, if it could write a book, many of us would have to move."
"Malio's is the best place in Tampa," said Phil Esposito, who said he made the decision to bring the Lightning hockey team to Tampa at Malio's and in June took the Stanley Cup to the restaurant. "The memories in there are unbelievable."
The Iavarone family has been in the restaurant business in Tampa since 1945, when Carmine and Frances opened an Italian place on Buffalo Avenue (now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard).
Their three sons went on to other ventures. Gene opened Carmine's Restaurant in Ybor City. Carmine Jr. launched Iavarone's Steakhouse in Carrollwood.
And Malio bought the Tropics Steakhouse at 301 S Dale Mabry in 1969.
It became a Tampa institution that's hosted a nonstop parade of veritable stars and local notables.
John Travolta and Michael Jordan have passed through its doors. Reputed mob leader Santo Trafficante was supposedly a regular. Tommy Franks recently took his in-laws there for lunch. Etched glass panels in the main dining room offer thanks to Edward DeBartolo Sr., who loaned Iavarone money for an expansion.
And Malio's is notorious as the place where an employee in the 1980s wooed Burt Reynolds away from Loni Anderson.
The stars give Malio's its glitz, but Shirley Iavarone said the Tampa folks whose faces never appear with news stories or in gossip pages matter just as much.
"That's what makes you," she said. "The regular people."
Over the years, Malio's has evolved to serve its customers.
When private clubs were in vogue in the late '70s and early '80s, a portion of the restaurant was open to members only. When Florida imposed an indoor smoking ban, Malio's built a patio around a lavishly landscaped fish pond so patrons would have a pleasant outdoor space for smoking.
Owners recently invested $40,000 in several high-definition televisions for their lounge and last Sunday began hosting weekly football parties. It was the first time the restaurant had been open on any Sunday other than Mother's Day, Shirley said.
Friday nights in the club, a disc jockey plays top 40 music for young patrons, and there's Latin music on Saturday nights.
If the zoning goes through and Malio's is sold, that would send the restaurant into the graveyard with other South Tampa dining landmarks - Cafe Pepe's, Palios Brothers Fried Chicken and the Old Meeting House.
That trend, it seems, is life in the big city, as the saying goes.
"The city is growing like crazy," Greco said. "The restaurant business - a number of years ago there were a handful of places that everyone went."
That's changing, he said. There's more competition, with more restaurants, more clubs in Channelside, Ybor City and along S Howard Avenue.
"If that place goes so will a lot of memories on the part of so many people," Greco said. "For many of us, it will be a chapter of our lives closed."
Staff writers Marc Topkin and Jeff Testerman contributed to this story.
