Gaido's Famous Seafood Restaurant

Mike Gaido's restaurant began as a second start. By Bill Cherry's account, after his father, San Jacinto, died in the summer of 1939, Mike and his brother Fritz moved to Houston in 1941 and opened a Gaido's on South Main. About two years later Mike sold his share to Fritz and came back to Galveston with his wife, Kewpie, to start over. He leased a small building at 39th and Seawall, beside the Deppens' hamburger stand, and ran a drive-in. The hip roof over the entrance is a piece of that first building, kept as a reminder.

What the plaque says

Gaido's Famous Seafood Restaurant Founded in 1911 as a sandwich shop at Seawall and 23rd street by Italian immigrant San Giacinto "Cinto" Gaido, in 1920 Gaido's became Galveston's first seafront restaurant open year round. Cinto's motto was "learn what is wanted and then serve" and his restaurant gained fame serving the fresh seafood his customers wanted. The restaurant's Seawall and 39th street location, originally a drive-in, opened in 1936. After cinto's death in 1939, his son, Mike, and daughter-in-law, Kewpie, both beloved civic leaders, ran the restaurant. In 1962 Gaido's became one of Galveston's first restaurants to be integrated. After Mike's death in 1993, his sons and their children continue to operate the business.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 0.8 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• Moody Mansion — 1.5 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 1.6 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• The Strand — 2.0 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.

More markers nearby

• Thomas Henry Borden — 0.6 mi
• Samuel May Williams — 0.6 mi
• Gail Borden, Jr. — 0.7 mi
• Ball High School — 0.7 mi