Las Olas wipeout? Six Fort Lauderdale eateries shut down on ritzy restaurant row
Are we witnessing the usual life cycle of a local restaurant on Fort Lauderdale’s premier shopping-dining corridor — or a gastronomic catastrophe?
Downtown Fort Lauderdale may be booming but new and legacy restaurants are feeling the pain. Case in point: Since April 1, a half-dozen eateries have abruptly shut down on Las Olas Boulevard.
The ritzy restaurant row, stretching from Southwest First Avenue to the beach, is pockmarked with vacancies new and unexpected. Only piles of red brick and exposed wires remain at La Bonne Crepe, a 45-year-old French-American bistro that survived COVID-19 but closed in April. And stacked metal chairs and condiment bottles are strewn around the former dining room of Matchbox/Big Buns Damn Good Burgers, a pizza pub and fast-casual burger stop at the Society Las Olas apartments that shut in April.
So are we witnessing the usual life cycle of Fort Lauderdale’s premier shopping-dining corridor — or a gastronomic catastrophe? If you ask hospitality experts and the restaurant owners themselves, the closings are typical and the reasons are mixed: high rents, slow foot traffic, expiring leases.
“I thought it was impossible to miss with a burger restaurant on Las Olas on the waterfront,” says Warren Thompson, whose Virginia hospitality outfit Thompson Restaurants owns Matchbox. “I made a mistake. We paid to get out of that unit.”
It’s tougher than ever to be a Las Olas restaurant in these inflationary times, argues John Noble Masi, a professor and hospitality expert at Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management. Even so, restaurants must get creative.
“When you’re in a tourist destination with lots of foot traffic, you’ve got to be on top of everything,” Noble says. “The places that closed maybe didn’t compete hard enough.”
Off Las Olas Boulevard, nearby downtown restaurants have recently met similar fates. Santiago’s Bodega, a 2-year-old neighborhood tapas bar from Key West, announced its closure in urban-hip Flagler Village in a May 28 Facebook post. Meanwhile Val+tino, a high-end Italian-Mediterranean haven for housemade pasta, shuttered May 5 after four months in business. Top Round, a hot roast beef pit stop and locals favorite, closed at the end of March. And the Galleria Mall location of Illinois chain Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant shut its nearly 5-year-old outpost on May 29.
Here’s a lineup of all the Las Olas restaurants that have recently closed and why:
Piazza Italia/Arabian Nights
904 E. Las Olas Blvd.; ThePiazzaItalia.com
When it replaced the former watering hole Mango’s in early 2019, owner Frank Talerico’s casual cafe joined a crowded Las Olas field of Italian eateries a meatball’s throw away, from Louie Bossi’s to Noodles Panini. In January, Talerico blended his business with a casual Mediterranean spot (with nightly belly-dancing shows) named Arabian Nights, which eventually replaced Piazza Italia earlier this spring.
Both closed in May, says Fort Lauderdale restaurateur Tim Petrillo, who owns multiple Las Olas addresses with businessman Steven Halmos, including Piazza Italia.
“[Talerico’s] lease ended last month,” Petrillo says. “I wouldn’t allow them to renew the lease because we’re going to demo that space and put in a new restaurant.”
The to-be-named restaurant, opening within the next 18 months, will be operated by Petrillo and his hospitality group The Restaurant People (YOLO, Java & Jam, S3).
La Bonne Crepe/LBC Las Olas
815 E. Las Olas Blvd.; LaBonneCrepe.com
This 45-year-old breakfast-lunch institution had run through several owners over the decades, and was known for eggs benedict and crepes sweet but mostly savory (think blackened chicken breast with Gruyere and smoked salmon with capers and béchamel). The quaint bistro tried rebranding into the hipper-sounding LBC Las Olas mid-pandemic, but eventually closed in early April without fanfare or announcement.
Petrillo, who doesn’t own the building where La Bonne Crepe sits, says pent-up demand after the pandemic prompted landlords to raise rents on Las Olas. He says it’s “highly likely” La Bonne Crepe couldn’t sustain those costs.
“La Bonne Crepe wanted a lease way under market,” Petrillo says. “You’re always going to have a bit of restaurant churn. Maybe it wasn’t the best location for them anymore.”
Email requests to the Las Olas Company, La Bonne Crepe’s landlord, were not returned.
Asbury Ale House
221 SW First Ave.; AsburyAleHouse.com
Part of a post-pandemic wave of restaurant operators from the Northeast, owner Matt Gullace’s gastropub finally opened last December at residential tower Society Las Olas after a two-year delay — but lasted all of six months before closing in May. The second location of Gullace’s New Jersey gastropub seemed to have it all: Astroturfed dining area facing the New River, a “Greetings from Asbury Park” sign, coal-fired pizzas, 50 beers on tap and sports on 40 TVs. Phone calls to Gullace’s cell phone went unreturned as of Friday, and the restaurant’s Fort Lauderdale social media has been removed.
Matchbox/Big Buns Damn Good Burgers
221 SW First Ave.; MatchboxRestaurants.com
Matchbox, a pizzeria, and Big Buns Damn Good Burgers, a fast-casual burger joint, occupied side-by-side waterfront spaces at Society Las Olas when they debuted in 2022. Warren Thompson, a Virginia restaurateur, says high rents and sluggish business doomed both in May, as did an ongoing disagreement with the city of Fort Lauderdale over docking access on the New River.
“I missed the mark because the lack of easy parking created the greatest barrier to success for those two restaurants,” Thompson says. “No one wants to spend 10 minutes parking in a garage just to order a burger that takes five minutes to make. Before I ever think about signing a new lease, I’ll need to do more research on the parking.”
Thompson says a Matchbox outpost that debuted in 2017 remains open at Sawgrass Mills Mall.
Sushi Garage
500 E. Las Olas Blvd.; SushiGarage.com
Born in a Miami Beach auto garage, this Japanese restaurant opened its Fort Lauderdale location in April 2021 inside the ritzy Icon Las Olas tower, replacing the former Etaru. The restaurant from the husband-and-wife team of Jonás and Alexandra Millán (Juvia in Miami Beach) closed in May without fanfare or explanation.
In March, the Milláns filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its Miami Beach Sushi Garage, which remains open.
Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar
800 E. Las Olas; CubaLibreRestaurant.com
After three years and change on the boulevard, co-founder Barry Gutin’s Philadelphia-based hive of traditional and modern Cuban fare (think guava-barbecue ribs, coconut crab fritters, ropa vieja) shut down on May 26.
“We’re sorry to announce that we’ve sold this location,” the restaurant posted on Facebook. “We are grateful to the Fort Lauderdale community who worked, dined, danced and celebrated with us the past few years.”
Gutin says the restaurant opened in April 2021 after more than a year of pandemic build-out, with a cavernous 250-seat dining room adorned with palm fronds and Old Havana facades.
“The nightlife traffic didn’t meet expectations,” Gutin says. “And in terms of Las Olas, the check averages weren’t high enough. The people were grazing instead of buying multi-course meals.”
He says the restaurant’s lease was sold to Sixty Vines, a Dallas-based restaurant-wine chain, which has a Boca Raton location.