"You either loved the old Le Tub or you hated it. And that was the way it ought to be. The classic Hollywood dive bar and restaurant used to be decorated with trash the original owner found on the beach. They only had one small grill to cook their deservedly famous cheeseburgers, which is why said burgers often took an hour to arrive at your table—always a little rarer than you expected. (You’d be warned about all of this in a speech by an already-sick-of-your-nonsense server). And the bathrooms, dear lord, the bathrooms. If those walls could talk, they’d beg for bleach. Le Tub was paradise, at least for a specific sort of Floridian. Le Tub still exists, but new ownership has sanded down the restaurant’s rough edges and turned it into something it was never meant to be: another palatable waterfront tourist trap. These changes will feel blindingly obvious to regulars. Signage is scribbled with social media handles. The bathrooms have been renovated to resemble a short-term vacation rental. TikTok pop echoes through the space, bouncing off the laminated menus on which, if you look closely, you’ll discover a blasphemous new entree of pineapple soy salmon. video credit: Ryan Pfeffer video credit: Ryan Pfeffer video credit: Ryan Pfeffer video credit: Ryan Pfeffer But the most unforgivable sin of this Le Tub update is the burger, which now arrives within a proper 20-minute window. The bun is dry, the patty isn’t seared hard enough, and it tastes like an irreconcilable fight with your best friend. The old Le Tub was a Rorschach test. You either saw everything great and grimey-weird about South Florida or you wanted to sprint home and take three showers. The local hospitality group that took over the place—who also run two other waterfront restaurants nearby—probably had good intentions when they scraped decades' worth of god-knows-what off the bathroom wall. In sanitizing Le Tub and optimizing it for efficiency, though, they’ve stripped it of personality. It's technically possible to find joy here. We still like their bar, where you can sit on old wood, look out at the water, and maybe spot a dolphin. We can imagine a family of tourists leaving happy, with stories to tell of the big burger they tried in Florida. But if you were a fan of the old Le Tub, or you're a dive bar freak who always meant to come here, don't bother. Now, it's just another example of a lesson too many land-owning Floridians refuse to learn: new doesn’t necessarily mean improved. Food Rundown photo credit: Ryan Pfeffer Le Burger This burger was always why you came to Le Tub—it was and is the only thing anyone eats here. Gayle King once said it made her feel like Zeus (we’re paraphrasing). Nearly the size of a grapefruit, Le Tub’s original burger was almost—but not quite—too unwieldy to consume. If you ordered it medium-rare, you were warned it would basically be tartare inside. Somehow, it worked. It was delicious. Now, the overcooked burger is simply big for the sake of being big. New ownership has changed the buns to a dry kaiser roll that quite literally crumbles under the pressure of keeping everything together. The accompanying tomato and onion are hastily thrown onto the plate in wimpy portions. It’s barely a bad impersonation of its former self." - Ryan Pfeffer
