Nowadays, hungry locals and vacationers flock to “Miami Beach’s oldest restaurant” to crack crabs and save room for Key Lime Pie, but one glance at the storied walls of Joe’s Stone Crab stokes curiosity about the characters who came before them.
Established in 1913, the beach town staple has seen its fair share of notable names pass through its doors, though perhaps the most notorious regular was gangster Al Capone, who made Joe’s a hometown haunt while retreating to his waterfront estate on Miami Beach’s Palm Island in 1928.
Given his status as one of America’s most infamous mobsters, the Chicago mafioso often arrived early through the back door and dined discreetly under a fake name, reportedly “Al Brown.”…