By.
kevin.brockway@gainesville.com
Tom Henderson was known around Gainesville as “Trader Tom,” a no-nonsense bar owner who went from serving beer and sandwiches to students to hosting high-profile celebrities.
He once told a then-unknown, up-and-coming Gainesville musician named Tom Petty to “turn the music down” at his adult establishment.
Henderson, who died at his home in Satellite Beach on Saturday at 89, owned several well-known bars in the Gainesville area, including Trader’s North, Trader’s South and the Round Bar.
“He was a very good man, very direct in his business,” his youngest son, Joey Henderson, said Wednesday. “He always had a plan, what he wanted to do. It was kind of his way or no way.
“When he went to work and from work, he carried a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun openly, to protect his money bags. That was his character.”
Born in Pensacola, Henderson enrolled at the University of Florida to attend law school in the early 1950s, but soured on the law and instead finished with a degree in psychology. His first bar in Gainesville, Tom Suds, was close to campus and sold beer and sandwiches.
After a short stint owning a bar called The Blue Flame, Henderson opened The Stag Bar on Northwest Fifth Avenue in 1956. His white friends from the UF law school wanted to stop by, but because Gainesville neighborhoods were segregated at the time, they couldn’t because the bar was open only to African-American patrons.
Henderson then opened Trader’s North on Northwest 13th Street in the 1960s, a bar known for its large rope net on the ceiling that covered the whole building. He would trade beer for interesting artifacts to hang on the giant net, hence earning the nickname Trader Tom. Beer was otherwise 25 cents a glass and Henderson had go-go girls dance on a small stage.
“The bar business was in his blood,” Joey Henderson said. “It was always, ‘build a different bar.’ He was a go-getter.”
In 1968, Henderson opened Trader’s South on Southwest 13th Street, a bar that featured live bands playing while topless girls danced on table tops. When the state of Florida refused to grant Henderson a liquor license because of the topless dancers, Henderson sued and won the right to serve liquor.
Petty and Marty Jourard of The Motels were among musicians who played at the adult establishment in the 1960s and 1970s.
“The bands, my dad was harsh on them,” Joey Henderson said. “He didn’t care who they were.”
Robin Williams visited Trader’s South after performing at Gator Growl in 1982, and Joey Henderson said his dad was struck by how short he was. Former NFL defensive lineman and actor Alex Karras also stopped by his establishments over the years.
In 1977, Henderson opened the Green Dolphin, on Northwest 13th Street next to Trader’s North, which served beer and sandwiches. The last bar that Henderson opened in Gainesville was Round Bar on Northwest 39th Avenue and 13th Street, a circular building that featured a spiral staircase leading up to bar seating. Joey Henderson said his dad got the idea for the unique design after visiting the Conch House in St. Augustine.
’He probably should have been an architect and a builder,” Joey Henderson said.
Henderson left Gainesville in 1989, retiring to Satellite Beach. Joey Henderson ran Trader’s South until it closed in 2006, after the expiration of an agreement between the club’s owners and the city that exempted it from rules prohibiting clubs from serving alcohol if they featured nude dancing.
The legal challenges began in 1995, when Gainesville passed laws to prevent nude establishments from serving alcohol. Henderson sued the city in 1996 and Trader’s South and the city reached an agreement in 1998 for a 10-year waiver, retroactive to 1996. In exchange for dropping its suit and donating $500 a year to the Gainesville symphony orchestra, Trader’s South could keep serving alcohol as a nude establishment.
Joey Henderson recalled his last meeting with then-Gainesville Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan in 2006, pleading for another extension.
“She was able to support us the first time around but told us she could not support us again,” Joey Henderson said. “I just decided then to stop fighting it.”
In retirement, Joey Henderson said his father enjoyed duck hunting, fishing off the dock of his Satellite Beach home and trips to Costa Rica.
Tom Henderson is survived by his three children, a daughter Maria, son Nick and youngest son Joey, and six grandchildren. Services were held in Satellite Beach.
