Harry J. Seifert Jr.

Harry J. Seifert Jr. died in his sleep on Tuesday 10 November 2026 at his home in the College Park area of Lake Worth Beach, aged 76. A family member told The Palm Beach Post the cause was heart failure; he had been in poor health for several years. Hours after his death the bar's marquee was left blank in silent tribute. A celebration of life was scheduled for 6 December 2026 at The Beach Club at the Lake Worth Beach Golf Club, and his family asked for donations to Harry's Helping Hands in lieu of flowers.

Harry J. Seifert Jr. was born on 5 September 1950 at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. The Seifert family had been in Lake Worth almost since the town's incorporation: his father, Harry Seifert Sr., came from Pittsburgh with his family in 1922 at the age of 10, and his grandfather opened Seifert Bakery on Lake Avenue the same year. In the 1940s his father and uncle Joe turned the bakery into the Townhouse Bar, and in 1954 his father opened his own bar at 1919 North Dixie Highway. Harry Jr. attended North Grade Elementary and Lake Worth High School and went on to earn a master's degree at Florida State University. His brother Tony recalled that he was very smart and incredibly well read, with aspirations beyond the family bar.

Before taking over the business, Seifert worked for a time as a substitute teacher. In 1981 his father handed him Harry's Banana Farm, a name the elder Seifert had adopted so the bar could get around rules barring bars from sponsoring youth sports teams. As early as 1979, when Penthouse magazine called the north end of Dixie Highway the sleaziest stretch of highway in America, he told The Palm Beach Post: "Sleaze is not so bad. It's OK with me."

Under his ownership the bar drew a new generation of customers in their twenties and thirties while keeping its blue collar character. Its walls and ceiling filled with memorabilia, including a mounted alligator, a hanging shark and sailfish, novelty license plates, bumper stickers and a Bill Mazeroski bobblehead, and a resident stray cat named Speedbump wandered the bartop. In the 1980s he erected the roadside marquee that became the bar's trademark, using it for satirical messages rather than drink specials, in later years with longtime manager Lou DeStout. He ran the bar day to day until a stroke more than a decade before his death, and in his last years was cited by the city over an unpermitted dinosaur on the roof.

Seifert had no children of his own. He was once married to a woman with children from a previous marriage, whom staff said he treated well. A longtime member of the local Rotary Club, he launched the charity Harry's Helping Hands and hosted toy drives and back to school fundraisers at the bar for decades. After his first stroke, Sabrina Edwards, a friend he had met at one of those fundraisers, became his caretaker for nearly 20 years. Staff described him as a very generous employer whose bartenders rarely left.

Seifert made Harry's Banana Farm what The Palm Beach Post called Palm Beach County's best known dive bar, and its marquee jokes, from "Welcome to Lake Worth: Batteries not included" to "We're smoke free! Now the only thing that stinks is our attitude," became part of local lore. His other lasting legacy is the charity work: the bar's 30th annual Christmas toy drive, held for the Rotary Club, went ahead as planned on 12 December 2026. His brother Tony said the bar would carry on: "Harry's Banana Farm will continue. The legacy goes on."