DORAL YARD

Opens in Downtown Doral, featuring food, music

The Doral Yard started with a grown-up idea.

It would build on the improvised serendipity that made an unused, weed-choked lot into the Wynwood Yard, a popular hangout space where Miami met for drinks around an outdoor bar, to listen to live music, eat out of shippingcontainer restaurants and food trucks and to walk among an urban garden, where you could learn to grow your own food.

The Doral Yard was to be more like an indoor food hall and music venue, with a sleek bar — a more buttoned down and civilized version. The coronavirus changed the equation.

Now, after more than two years of planning, the Doral Yard has opened in Downtown Doral with more than a little of its original Big Wynwood Energy.

“This isn’t quite The Doral Yard we imagined a year ago, but it’s The Doral Yard that our community needs right now,“Yard co-founder Della Heiman, who started the original yard, wrote in a release.

“We always envisioned

The Doral Yard as the slightly more mature, sophisticated sister of The Wynwood Yard, but in many ways, our COVID-19 experimentation has brought all of us back to our earliest days in Wynwood, when everything had to be created from scratch.”

The new Doral Yard built a solid outdoor canopy with string lights and picnic tables that evokes the original Wynwood Yard.

There diners can sit with cocktails from the inside bar and a variety of food vendors from which to choose.

Della Bowls, Heiman’s creation in Wynwood, are healthy veggie-based bowls. Un Pollo focuses on Venezuelan-style rotisserie chicken. YIP makes a variety of Chinese-style dim sum dumplings.

And outdoors, Paletas Morelia serves up ice cream pops and Santo Dulce pairs it with freshfried churros.

A planned Phase 2 will feature a permanent outdoor area with a full stage for live music. In the past, artists such as Shakira popped into the Wynwood Yard without warning to put on an impromptu show for an intimate crowd.

Limited inside seating also is available, as are takeout and delivery orders.

THE DORAL YARD

8455 NW 53rd St., Suite 106, Doral

Hours: Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday until midnight.

VINCENT RIVES Handout The Doral Yard has opened as a daytime and nighttime food and entertainment venue in Downtown Doral.

ROD DEAL Handout The Doral Yard echoes the original Wynwood Yard with a new outside dining area, innovated to deal with the challenges of the coronavirus.

MEGAN MCCLUER Handout The Doral Yard has several food options, including rotisserie chicken, Chinese-style dumplings and healthy bowls.