Two recent restaurant closings may signal a shift in the Grove’s dining scene, and a tougher road ahead for local entrepreneurs and homegrown talent.
Minty Z planned for the best-case scenario before it all went wrong.
The Chinese-inspired vegan restaurant opened on Grand Avenue near Commodore Plaza as throngs were moving to South Florida to escape COVID restrictions.
Owners Huimin “Minty” Zhu and her husband Alex Falco, a trained chef, had left New York amid rising rents in 2019 and found an eager audience of fellow transplants in the summer of 2020 as they sold homemade food in the Coconut Grove Organic Market.
That inspired them to open Minty Z in December of 2020 as the Grove filled with new faces. They were joined by a surge of new restaurants, some local but many out-of-town restaurant groups. Minty Z saw it all so promising that they opened a second location in January 2023 in Midtown.
It was a boom that wouldn’t last. In late August, Minty Z announced on its Instagram page that it was closing the first week of September. The couple had already closed their Midtown spot.
Minty Z follows the Key Club, the major anchor by nightlife empresario David Grutman which lasted just two years in the renovated CocoWalk. It’s being replaced by a Canadian steakhouse franchise.
Coconut Grove’s dining scene has long experienced booms and busts. And now, after a surge of new restaurant openings, it appears to be in flux again.
“Miami has changed a lot. Rents went up and a lot of our clientele moved away,” Zhu said. “They either moved out of state or out of Miami. A lot of people couldn’t afford (living in Miami) so we lost a lot of our customers.”
Zhu said she saw the cost of food and supplies go up and crowds thin since March. Many of the new transplants that had been diners left Miami, Zhu said, amid rising rents. Zhu said she and her family – the couple now has a toddler – are joining them. They are moving to Los Angeles where they have family to try their luck in the restaurant business there.
As restaurants come and go in the Grove, long-time residents will recognize a familiar pattern. The 1990s proved a boom which led to spots like Le Bouchon du Grove, Barracuda Taphouse & Grill, Sandbar and Tavern in the Grove. That led to large, commercial franchises swooping in, places like Cheesecake Factory, Johnny Rockets, Hooters and Fat Tuesday — all now closed.
The pendulum swung toward mom-and-pop restaurants in the early 2010s. Bombay Darbar was a hit when it opened in June of 2010. It was followed the next year by LoKal, which brought in the craft beer scene, and Italian favorite Strada in the Grove.
The pandemic brought another new wave of restaurants and bars. The Grove now has five sushi restaurants, competing Mediterranean restaurants, Amal and Eva, and Bodega Taqueria, Bartaco and Los Felix, all serving variations of Mexican cuisine.
But the closing of Minty Z and Key Club suggest a shift in the Grove’s dining scene may be underway. Whether that scene still has room for local entrepreneurs is an open question.
Miami chef Giorgio Rapicavoli thinks it does. The Mayfair House Hotel & Garden recently tapped Rapicavoli to run its signature Mayfair Grill.
“They chose a local from Miami to create something for locals,” said Rapicavoli, who returns to the Grove after starting and leaving Glass & Vine. “I think we’re getting back to what the Grove used to be, a place by locals, created for locals.”
Others aren’t so sure.
“I would love to see the Grove continue to be this charming place for locals, but I don’t think it’s feasible.” said Mike Beltran, owner of the Michelin-starred Ariete restaurant, which opened in 2016 and has withstood neighborhood change.
Beltran, who opened the Mediterranean restaurant Eva and the neighboring Oyster Bar in CocoWalk in October 2023, said rising rents are starting to “price the little guy out.”
“It’s hard not to see the writing on the wall,” he said.
Big out-of-state restaurant groups like Major Food Group from New York are now competing with local entrepreneurs. “It makes you feel terrible when you see locals getting pushed out just because New Yorkers have more money,” Beltran said.
Jeff Zalaznick, co-owner of Major Food Group and restaurants like Carbone, has been bullish on South Florida. His group is opening a second restaurant in the Grove, he said in a brief phone call this month.
Major Food signed a lease in 2022 to open a restaurant on Rice Street at Mayfair in the Grove, near the former location of The Spillover restaurant, according to court records.
Carbone made a huge splash when it opened an offshoot of its New York spot in Miami Beach in January 2021. It drew celebrities who knew the New York spot and locals who wanted to see what the fuss was about. Since then, Major Food has opened several high-profile restaurants, including Dirty French in Brickell and Sadelle’s in the Grove.
Zalaznick said during the phone call that the Rice Street restaurant, which hasn’t been officially named, will be a “neighborhood anchor.”
Several sources said it will be Carbone Vino, a concept the group launched in Dallas, which focuses on Italian wines and “handmade pastas, Sicilian pizzas, fresh gelato, and entrées like a signature fried veal chop,” according to the website.
In the meantime, though, The Spillover won’t be returning to Mayfair in the Grove after settling litigation with the landlord. Spillover owner Matthew Kuscher, who also owns LoKal, wouldn’t comment on the litigation or its outcome, but he said the Grove’s new restaurant scene is unsustainable.
“There’s just way too many restaurants,” Kuscher said. “You’re going to see a lot of them go out of business. I just can’t see how all these places are going to make it.”
It’s not just about competition, he noted. It’s also about costs. Food costs went up and “never came back down” after the pandemic, said Kuscher, who owns restaurants in Wynwood and Hialeah.
Insurance costs also rose; Kuscher said LoKal’s insurance has gone up four times since he opened in 2011. And rents remain the highest they’ve ever been in the Grove. Not every business, even well-run ones, will be able to withstand those pressures, he said.
“As a consumer, you have more choices than you’ve ever had before,” Kuscher said. “But from my perspective, you’re going to see so much turnover…. When you understand the business, you know it’s not going to last.”
One way Grove restaurant owners can inoculate themselves against these changes is simple but out of reach for many: own the property where your restaurant is.
Atchana Capellini did just that. She and her husband bought the 2,900 square foot building where Atchana’s Homegrown Thai resides in 2021 for $2.7 million.
“At least I know I can’t get kicked out,” she said.
It has allowed her to expand her restaurant, pay her employees a living wage and remain in the town where she grew up – and where she met her husband at the defunct Monty Trainer’s Village Inn.
“We don’t want to be South Beach. We don’t want to be Wynwood,” she said.
If you can’t own your own land, it helps to have a good landlord – and some luck.
Javier Uribe’s family opened Strada in the Grove on Commodore Plaza in 2013. Uribe grew up in the Grove, went to school here, and his family had lived here for years. They wanted to be a part of the neighborhood’s growth for the better.
Strada was one of the first “new” restaurants to open in the Grove, just two years after LoKal staked the spot next door and Bombay Darbar opened across the street, before it relocated to Florida Avenue.
The Grove had many vacant and affordable properties then, Uribe said, especially closer to the West Grove. They were offered a 10-year lease, which seemed safe at the time.
“We just bet that Coconut Grove would grow. And today the Grove is very different than it was back then,” Uribe said. “More things started to open and Coconut Grove had a resurgence.”
They kept betting. They opened Farinelli 1937 across the street as a more casual option, with pizzas and happy hours in a larger space with plenty of outdoor seating. It was a gift during the pandemic, Uribe said, as it allowed the restaurant to stay open.
But safe is all relative to South Florida’s constant remaking of itself.
When it came time to renew Strada’s lease, the landlord had other ideas. He wanted to sell the building at three times the assessed value that the family offered, Uribe said.
“We got essentially forced out of there,” Uribe said.
That’s where luck came in. Uribe’s landlord at Farinelli offered a reasonable extension. And Farinelli had a liquor license, which allowed them to offer drinks that would grow their business. The Uribes decided to move Strada to the Farinelli space and keep some of the menu items – like pizzas – and fold them into one restaurant.
“It was a blessing in disguise,” Uribe said. They expect to reopen this winter.
In the meantime, the Grove resident says he appreciates all the new dining options in the neighborhood. “Having more dining options is a good thing,” Uribe said. Enjoy it, he says, for however long it lasts.
