Bern Laxer, famed Fla. restaurateur, dies at 78

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 9, 2002

TAMPA, FLA. -- Bernard H. "Bern" Laxer, whose internationally renowned Bern's Steak House here reflects its founder's passion for quality and service through a range of unusual features, died Aug. 31 after a long illness. He was 78.

Laxer launched Bern's in 1956 on a $1,400 investment and expanded it over the next 30 years into an ornate Victorian showplace with a vast selection of wines, house-aged Prime beef, live seafood, produce from its own 11-acre organic farm and a highly refined server-training system. In 1978 he opened an upstairs dessert room, which features a 65-page menu, to extend guests' experiences and help turn dining tables more rapidly in the 320-seat establishment.

His culinary curiosity led to such things as a storeroom full of stainless-steel dim sum steamers that he bought on a trip to San Francisco in the 1970s and now are used in the dim sum lounge of a spin-off restaurant, SideBerns, in Tampa.

Bern's was inducted into the Nation's Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame in 1982.

Laxer retired in 1986, and his son, David, took over the operation, later opening SideBerns.

Laxer is survived by his wife, Gertrude; a daughter, Julia Laxer; David Laxer and his wife, Christina, and their two daughters, Elena Paris and Amelia Rose Laxer.