Fort Lauderdale’s beach and business district is turning out to be a great place to find a good restaurant. And a tough place to own a restaurant.
When Las Olas Riverfront shopping and entertainment center opens later this month, it is expected to add 13 bars and restaurants _ nearly 2,500 restaurant seats _ to the city’s central core.
That’s on top of at least 4,000 seats on Las Olas Boulevard itself, the city’s well-known shopping street, and 800 to 1,000 at Beach Place, a shopping and entertainment center at the beach. Riverfront is scheduled to open starting on June 19 _ and it could cause problems for other restaurant owners.
“I’ve been in the restaurant business 43 years, and there’s nothing good about competition,” said David Talty, a restaurant consultant and professor of hospitality management at Florida International University.
Except of course, if you’re the customer. “The competition is so stiff, the restaurants had damn well better be good,” said John Day, co-owner of Mangos, a Las Olas Boulevard restaurant. “The availability of fine dining is pretty much guaranteed.”
There hasn’t been fine dining on Brickell Avenue, the city’s former shopping street, for many years. But Las Olas Riverfront was conceived seven years ago as part of the city’s long-term plan to remake its riverfront into an urban jewel. The city sold the land to developers at a bargain-basement price. Since that time, the city has built a two-mile brick pedestrian walkway called Riverwalk. It has built the Broward Center for Performing Arts and the Museum of Discovery and Science. And Las Olas Boulevard to the east has been revitalized.
The anchor of Las Olas Riverfront is a 23-screen Regal Cinemas movie theater and Regal’s adult-oriented entertainment center, The Escape. Riverfront also features retailers such as Havana Republic cigar store, Sunglass Hut, H.T. Chittum & Co. clothing and Argenti Design Jewelers.
The most noticeable thing about Riverfront is the number of places to eat and drink. There’s Aztec World cafe, Mexican food with an Aztec theme. China Grill Cafe, an offshoot of the popular South Beach restaurant. Mezzanote, also from South Beach. Max’s Grille, by Dennis Max. And for casual diners, there’s Murphy’s Law Irish Pub, Hooters and Dan Marino’s Town Tavern sports bar. There’s also a daiquiri bar and Kohr Bros. Frozen Custard.
That’s a lot of new restaurant seats, in an area that has always had an abundance. There are only so many upper-income restaurant goers, Talty said. And for the Riverfront restaurateur, high rent is also a big problem.
“Everybody’s going to do well on the weekends, but what happens Monday through Thursday?” Talty said. “When you’re in at high cost, it makes it very difficult.” Some, he figures, will do well. But others will fail.
“There’s no question, just like the stock market has to correct itself, there has to be attrition,” said John Day of Mangos. “There’s just not that many butts to put in the seats.”
Las Olas is not staying still waiting for the new kid on the block to open. In the next few weeks, Liberties book and music store opens, as does a jazz club owned by Toni Bishop, the popular local jazz singer. That’s two attractions where food is not the biggest draw.
Talty thinks that restaurants in areas surrounding central Fort Lauderdale _ 17th Street Causeway, Sunrise Boulevard or Oakland Park Boulevard _ might get hurt more than the restaurants at the beach and downtown.
“For the next four to six months, everybody’s going to be going to the new areas to try them out,” he said.
Las Olas Riverfront officials are counting on the center being a regional draw, bringing in shoppers from Boca Raton to northern Miami-Dade County.
What will draw them is just not Las Olas Riverfront, but the whole package _ the performing arts center, the children’s science museum and IMAX 3-D movie theater, the beach and strolling along the boulevard, said marketing director Cindy Webb.
“With this entire package, I don’t think anybody can beat Fort Lauderdale,” she said. Riverfront expects its market will be 60 percent tourists in winter, and 60 percent locals in summer, she said.
But Las Olas Riverfront has some potential parking problems to head off.
It has no parking on site because the city allowed the center to rely on existing parking _ a hodge podge of government-owned parking garages and a few small private lots.
Center officials say they have 7,300 spaces to draw on _ assuming some shoppers will be willing to take a shuttle or Water Taxi from a parking garage as far away as the county courthouse on the other side of the river.
“We know there’s a potential problem, and by working with all the players, we’re working to resolve that,” Webb said. The center is trying solutions such as parking employees in a lot at State Road 84 and Interstate 95, and boating them down the New River to the center.
Competitors expect at least a short-term impact. “I think it will draw lots of folks,” said Dwight Jundt, a partner in Beach Place. “Everybody’s going to want to see it, including me.”
Beach Place officials are confident that people will wander back to the beach after they’ve checked out Las Olas Riverfront. “We’ve got the beach breezes,” Jundt said.
Merchants aren’t feeling gloomy. Maureen Fustin, manager of Black Market women’s clothing store at Beach Place, said her customers are excited about the opening, so she’s excited, too.
“There are so many tourists here,” she said. “If they have something I don’t have, I have no problems sending them there.”
Along the original Las Olas, Las Olas Boulevard, there’s a sense of nervous anticipation.
“I can’t make up my mind; I’m schizophrenic,” said Don Gorenberg, owner of Porch Cafe, a Las Olas Boulevard cafe and fancy gift shop. Gorenberg thinks Riverfront will probably draw new traffic that will benefit everyone.
But he worries that Riverfront customers might try to park in the Las Olas shopping district and worsen parking problems there. He’s comforted by the fact that there’s a three- to four-block gap between the two.
Butch Samp, owner of The Floridian diner, almost halfway between Las Olas Riverfront and the beach, finds the number of restaurant seats in downtown “incredible.”
He doesn’t think Las Olas will be hurt, though, because it’s both an entertainment and a practical destination, with everything from barber shops to jewelry stores to a post office as well as fancy restaurants.
“I got people who eat here seven days a week, three meals a day. How many times do you go to Hooters? I go to Hooters,” he said. “But not every day.”
Samp thinks the key is more downtown housing.
“I’m happy every time I see a townhouse go up,” he said.
Some merchants think the center offers a complement, not competition.
“I see this as the Upper East Side. I see that as Soho,” said Mario Argiro, owner of Moda Mario clothing store on Las Olas Boulevard. In other words, Las Olas is older and more exclusive, while Riverfront will be younger and funkier.
The potential for further development makes Argiro see nothing but good in the future.
Atlantic Gulf Communities has proposed a 35-story residential tower, plus an office tower and hotel along the New River between Riverfront and the Las Olas shopping district. Developer Terry Stiles is building a second Las Olas Centre office building at Southeast Third Avenue and Las Olas, with room for stores and restaurants on the bottom floor. Florida Atlantic University and Broward Community College are expected to build an office tower. Developers have plans for buildings on Andrews Avenue near Las Olas, including the former McCrorys discount store.
“I guarantee in five years, you’re going to see the whole street tied together,” Argiro said. “I’m not afraid of competition. I am for it, if they open more shops, more restaurants, more professional places.”
