Palm Beach's Ta-boo celebrates 80 years as a go-to restaurant

Of all the restaurants in Palm Beach, Ta-boo — the American bistro celebrating its 80th anniversary this month in its Worth Avenue perch — is where memorable stories have been born and live on.

After all, when you’ve thrived on the island for eight decades thanks to what owner Franklyn de Marco distills into a slogan — “great food and drinks, fair prices and celebrity treatment”— you’re worthy of lore and legends.

And there are many.

Did Joseph P. Kennedy in the 1940s really barricade himself in Ta-boo’s ladies’ room one day with mistress Gloria Swanson?

Did a World War II German U-boat commander plying the waters off South Florida really come ashore, disguised, for a stiff drink at Ta-boo?

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Did a bleary-eyed Barbara Hutton in the 1960s really stop by Ta-boo one morning for a pick-me-up declared the nation’s first Bloody Mary?

Did a 1970s cocktail-hour pianist at Ta-boo really play the theme from "The Godfather" when Frank Sinatra came for dinner?

Even longtime Palm Beachers aren’t sure about the veracity of such enduring tales, but devotees say they’re as delicious as Ta-boo’s rotisserie duck, smoked salmon pizza and coconut cream-laden Lust dessert — especially when enjoyed at Table No. 1 beside the big picture window overlooking Worth Avenue.

But nothing beats celebrating 80 years in a town where countless other restaurants have come and gone — even if that coincides with a pandemic, de Marco, who has owned Ta-boo for 31 years, told the Daily News.

“It’s nothing but sweet, sweet, sweet,” he said. “We just keep doing what we’ve been doing right all these years and here we are, still going strong.”

Ta-boo, 221 Worth Ave., debuted on Dec. 18, 1941 as Americans were reeling from the Dec. 7 Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. But founder Ted Stone, a former New York nightclub proprietor, pushed forward with what was quickly dubbed “the newest of Palm Beach smart spots.”

With a retractable roof for dancing under the stars and a then-circular bamboo bar illuminated by fruit-shaped lights, Ta-boo had a charm that lured everyone from high society to World War II servicemen stationed in the area.

At the entrance stood a uniformed doorman. Inside, the beautiful people sipped highballs amid 7,000 square feet with dining and lounges while cocktail-hour and “after 9” musicians played Ta-boo’s piano with a drum set nearby

“Fashionable Ta-boo” was where “French cuisine is of a high order for luncheon” and “charcoal-broiled dinners are served from the well-known aluminum wagon-broiler at dinner,” Palm Beach Life magazine wrote in 1942.

Wearing long leather aprons over their suits, Ta-boo’s sommeliers for years made the rounds, pushing a horn-equipped “cart of wine that looks like a baby carriage converted into a wine vehicle,” the Miami Herald reported in 1951.

Top entertainers — frequently in town to play at the now-dark Royal Poinciana Theater— always made a point of stopping by Ta-boo.

No one was surprised when Ethel Merman, once considered the first lady of the musical-comedy stage, joined Eddy Duchin at the piano in an impromptu performance one night. Years later, Jackie Gleason bounced in.

Stone sold the place in 1955 to former pro baseball player and restaurateur Jim Peterson, a well-liked Ta-boo owner for 20 years.

“He would go from table to table,” the late Jesse Newman, a decades-long Palm Beach business owner and civic leader, once said. “Ta-boo was a hangout for everybody because it was open year-round and the prices were reasonable.”

In 1975, Peterson sold Ta-boo to hotel owner and magazine publisher Leonard Mercer and Philadelphia restaurateurs John and Paul Lambrakis.

When the 1980s savings-and-loan bank crisis hit, Ta-boo ran into financial troubles of its own and intermittently closed for “renovations.”

After other ownership shifts, the restaurant in 1989 moved to the Harbour Shops in Palm Beach Gardens, but lasted just one season there.

Enter de Marco, a then-real estate broker who in 1990 revived, refreshed and reopened Ta-boo on Worth Avenue on Oct. 5, 1990 with his then-partner and savvy businesswoman Nancy Sharigan.

The fruity lights were gone and the space was smaller, but locals returned to Ta-boo in droves — from business types handshaking deals over martinis to Avenue shoppers and out-on-the-town socialites.

Celebrities at Ta-boo were back — from Susan Lucci to Kathleen Turner — and they’re still coming, whether it’s Rod Stewart, Howard Stern or Sylvester Stallone.

“There are celebrity sightings and the legendary Ta-boo stories, but really, Ta-boo is like home; it’s ageless,” Sherry Frankel, a longtime Worth Avenue future with an eponymous shop, told the Daily News. “The bar is busy, people are happy and the food is good.”

And there's outdoor seating: In the summer of 2020. Ta-boo added four two-seat tables out front on Worth Avenue thanks to a pandemic-era outdoor-dining program the Town Council launched in May 2020.

De Marco, an affable host, says Ta-boo’s success rests on his staff, including such managers as Richard Whitaker, a 25-plus-year Ta-boo veteran who in turn credits “consistency.”

“It’s not that we haven’t changed, we have,” Whitaker told the Daily News. “But we’re consistently good at what we do, be it a great burger or Dover sole.”

Last April, the ownership of the building that houses Ta-boo and two other businesses changed hands; longtime Worth Avenue property owner and landlord Burt Handelsman sold it to Colorado real estate investor-developer Mark Hunt for $23.76 million.

Rumors percolated about Ta-boo’s fate, but “obviously we’re still here,” de Marco said.

For the three decades he has owned Ta-boo, de Marco has favored sitting at a stool at the end of the bar, watching guests enter before meeting and greeting.

He’s long been a stickler about patrons not dressing too casually, but he recognizes times change. “What I’ve always wanted, above all, is for people to have a good time. I’m still having a good time. I’ve always said that when I die, they’ll probably put my ashes in a bottle behind the bar with the brandy.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Ta-boo marks 80 years as one of Palm Beach's go-to restaurants