Ask Margaret
The history of the Kapok Tree restaurant
in Clearwater actually began in Maryland
in 1926, when a newly widowed woman
opened her home to travelers along
Maryland’s Routes 80 and 355, which
intersected near her property in Urbana,
Maryland, about 60 miles from Washington,
D.C. Her son, Richard “Dick” Baumgardner,
who was known as Hot Cha Gardner, was
a singer/musician who converted his
mother’s restaurant into the Peter Pan
Inn in the late 1940s. He fashioned it after
what he had seen in California at Knott’s
Berry Farm. He filled his restaurant with
old furniture and unique accents, utilizing
sewing machines as the bases for tables,
statues and other interesting décor items.
His concept was simple, as there were only
four entrées: steak, fried chicken, ham and
fried shrimp. Everything else was served
family style in unlimited portions. Since it
held one of the only liquor licenses in the
state of Maryland, the restaurant quickly
became a success. Residents of the District
of Columbia area flocked there to enjoy its
hush puppies (corn fritters) and alcoholic
Kapok Punch, which was served in souvenir
hurricane glasses.
The Peter Pan Inn was open May through
September due to the weather in the area;
so Baumgardner spent the remaining six
months of the year in Clearwater, Florida.
In 1956, he purchased the kapok tree
property on McMullen Booth Road on
the outskirts of Clearwater, where a fruit
stand operated under
the giant kapok tree that
had been planted by a
citrus grower a hundred
years earlier.
In 1958, Baumgardner
opened a 200-seat
restaurant on the
property in the shade
of the tree and named
114 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020
his new Florida venture The Kapok Tree Inn,
which served the same food as his Peter Pan
Inn did in Maryland. Although he originally
planned to open The Kapok Tree for the six
months a year that Peter Pan was closed,
and to move his employees back and forth
between the two restaurants, the Clearwater
restaurant proved to be so successful that he
continued to expand it and to remain open
year-round. By the mid-1960s, it had become
the largest restaurant in the United States
with 1,750 seats in eight different dining
rooms, each decorated in a style that relied
on finding specialty items from around the
world and paying homage to foreign sites.
The fountains in the Clearwater restaurant’s
garden were styled after the ones of Tivoli
in northern Italy, while the restaurant’s
expansive rooms were filled with exotic
treasures.
At the height of the restaurant’s success,
Baumgardner took the company public to
raise funds in order to open another Kapok
Tree restaurant southwest of his Clearwater
location in Madeira Beach on a large parcel of
land he had purchased. Shortly thereafter, a
secondary stock offering raised more money
to open a third Florida Kapok Tree restaurant
in Fort Lauderdale.
All went well until Baumgardner died
in 1976, leaving his shares of stock to his
third wife June and his three children from
his first marriage. As times were changing,
the old formula was not working and the
restaurants began to fail. The children and
their stepmother
began litigation
between themselves
that resulted in
June Bumgardner
settling with them in
order to gain control
of the restaurants.
H o w e v e r ,
continuing losses
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by Margaret Word Burnside
What can you tell me about the history of the
former Kapok Tree restaurant near Ruth Eckerd
Hall in Clearwater?
S.P., Largo
If you have any questions about the
people, places or things in the Tampa
Bay area, please send them to
“Ask Margaret” at Tampa Bay Magazine,
2531 Landmark Drive, Suite 101,
Clearwater, Florida 33761.
We regret that not all questions
can be answered.
This covered gazebo at the entrance to
the restaurant was the spot where guests
received their dining room assignments
so that a host could seat them.