When the Funky Biscuit opened in Boca Raton in mid-July of 2011, there were certainly no guarantees that the live music establishment and restaurant would still exist 15 years later.
Creative music in general, and full-band live music in particular, were just starting to slide in what’s become their slow declines in tourist-heavy South Florida. And the club, situated in a nook of the Royal Palm Place plaza amid shops and restaurants off Mizner Boulevard, isn’t easy to find and thus doesn’t exactly attract much drive-by or walk-in traffic.
Yet owner Al Poliak’s only hiatus during the 15 years since was a brief, COVID-19-induced shutdown in 2020.
The Funky Biscuit started out of the gate as a blues venue, taking the baton (and multiple employees) from the Bamboo Room in Lake Worth Beach. That club likewise featured touring artists, but was in the midst of an extended shutdown. It then went through a few different iterations before reopening as Rudy’s at Bamboo in 2025, and now features local and regional acts.
Pictures on the walls from past performances at the Funky Biscuit tell the story of the past decade and a half. There are several Allman Brothers Band members (singing keyboardist Gregg Allman, drummer Butch Trucks, bassist Oteil Burbridge), roots music icons like Leon Russell, Tab Benoit and David Bromberg, jazz saxophonist Bill Evans, uncategorizable singer/guitarist Col. Bruce Hampton, and hundreds more.
Jazz/fusion stars from guitarists Larry Carlton, Wayne Krantz, Oz Noy and Greg Koch to drummers Billy Cobham, Dave Weckl, Dennis Chambers and Simon Phillips have dotted the calendar in recent years, and several smooth jazz artists are now draws.
“I’m from the Washington, D.C./Maryland area, where the music scene is very robust,” says Poliak. “Many of the clubs there have live music every night, in all different genres. I’ve tried to copy that format down here, but South Florida wasn’t ready for having live music six or seven nights a week. So it was a major force-feeding job at first, but people have slowly become accustomed to it.”
A spacious stage, excellent PA system and sound engineers, and a creative menu of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, craft beers, wines and cocktails have helped fuel that effort.
As has local talent, mostly booked on weeknights. For Boynton Beach-based singing multi-instrumentalist Richie Schmidt, the Funky Biscuit has practically become a personal house gig. His band the Fabulous Fleetwoods, one of the longest-standing blues acts in South Florida, is a frequent booking.
Schmidt has also been part of multiple stagings of The Last Waltz, director Martin Scorsese’s documentary about the 1976 farewell concert by The Band at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.
More frequent is the duo Twocan Blue with his wife, singing keyboardist Tess Schmidt. The couple has provided weekly Friday happy hour entertainment for 14 years, with Richie alternating between guitar, flute, mandolin, harmonica and violin.
And then there’s his front-man status in the Funky Biscuit Allstars. That group has gone from playing Monday nights backing area jam musicians, with no admission, to becoming a major ticketed draw — all because of Schmidt and fellow musicians like guitarists Drew Preston and Jeffrey James Harris, keyboardists Bob Taylor and Mitch Farber, bassists Tom Snellgrove and Mark Telesca, drummer Antony Livoti, and other major South Florida talents who’ve rotated through its expert cover band personnel.
Ask for an Allman Brothers Band classic, for example, and you’re literally in good hands.
A former president and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Jay Berman, frequents the Funky Biscuit — and he certainly knows quality music when he hears it.
“They’re literally helping to keep live music alive,” Berman says about the Funky Biscuit Allstars.
For its 15th, the Funky Biscuit continues the Allman Brothers Band’s legacy. One of the greatest of American groups in any genre, the Allmans emerged from Macon, Ga., and reigned over the international Southern rock and jam band scenes from 1969-2014 — in spite of deaths, replacements, personal struggles and hiatuses — by adding elements of blues, jazz, country, gospel and beyond. And four consecutive nights of the tribute act Trouble No More offer a prolonged salute from July 15-18.
The band’s lineup features sons of Allmans bass-playing alumni in vocalist Lamar Williams Jr. and bassist Berry Duane Oakley, plus singing guitarists Brandon “Taz” Niederauer (a rising star at age 23) and Quinn Sullivan, Grammy Award-nominated keyboardist Peter Levin, drummer Aaron “Bucky” Buckingham, and special guests.
If You Go
Trouble No More: A Celebration of the Allman Brothers Band performs at the Funky Biscuit, 303 S.E. Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton.
When: 8 p.m. July 15, 16 and 18; 9 p.m. July 17
Tickets: $50-$76.42
Info: 561-3995-2929, funkybiscuit.com