South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Menu growing at buzzy Uptown Boca complex
Olive U opens, Naked Taco, Silverspot Cinema, Sloan’s Ice Cream on the way
Build-your-own-bowl eateries are still a white-hot trend across South Florida, and the proof may be Abdul Aburmaieleh’s Olive U Mediterranean Grill, which debuted this month at the massive Uptown Boca shopping complex.
After cooking complex Mediterranean dishes for much of his culinary career, Aburmaieleh is now a disciple of the Chipotle-fication of food. His 2,600-squarefoot Olive U outpost at 9560 Glades Road, Suite 155, does away with common Mediterranean entrees (such as roasted rack of lamb or Moroccan-style chicken). Instead, customers choose a base (hummus, romaine lettuce, cinnamon or lentil rice, pita) followed by a choice of protein (cumin- and curry-seasoned shwarma, oregano-garlic chicken, gyro, falafel, tofu), and can pile on as many toppings (tomatoes, cucumbers)
and sauces as they like, Aburmaieleh says.
“I’m a big Chipotle fan and I wanted to give people on the go something quick and healthy and fresh. It’s already working in the suburbs,” says Aburmaieleh, a retired Ohio police officer who cut his teeth cooking lamb and okra at a Columbus public market. “We keep it affordable by staying away from pricier cuts of meat, like lamb, so that every meal costs under $10.”
The 76-seat Olive U stands among the first restaurants and bars now open inside the buzzy new Uptown Boca, a sprawling suburban wonderland of chain stores and apartments on 13 acres where Glades Road meets State Road 7. The $200 million foodie village, which includes 456 mid-rise apartments behind the plaza, will eventually include a Silverspot Cinema and still-unnamed organic supermarket, and a cornucopia of chains including Sloan’s, Lazy Dog Restaurant
and Bar, Bonefish Grill, Lynora’s Kitchen and Naked Taco.
This is the third location of the Palm Beach Gardensborn Olive U chain, after its second, in east Boca Raton, opened in May after months of pandemic-related delays. Aburmaieleh is bullish about Uptown Boca, where Olive U drew 200 visitors on opening day this month. New storefronts are taking shape around him — including a direct competitor, Florida bowl chain Bolay — opening two doors down this summer.
“I see this becoming the best shopping village in Boca,” Aburmaieleh says. “Just look at the lineup. Having a movie theater and apartments and an organic grocery is just what we need. Boca needs this attraction.”
What else is new at Uptown Boca
Rain, hurricanes and not even a global pandemic stopped Uptown Boca from unveiling its first storefronts last fall, joining a cluster of aging strip malls along the spine of Glades Road.
Construction cranes will keep dotting the shopping center at least through 2021. Hard-hatted workers laid rebar and jackhammered at a blistering pace this week on the half-built Lazy Dog Restaurant, a dog-friendly Southern California gastropub set to open this fall.
Along with Olive U Mediterranean Grill, sister locations of Just Salad, BurgerFi and Chick-Fil-A have opened since January, along with a 431-space parking garage and barber shops.
Sloan’s Ice Cream, serving homemade chocolate, sundaes, shakes, cookies and candy at 15 worldwide locations, is next to open this April at 9690 Glades Road, Suite 350.
Most tenants signed on with Uptown Boca before the pandemic, although COVID-19 caused some delays to construction, says Brian Schmier, whose Schmier Property Group bought the 38-acre west Boca farm in 2018 with three other partners. He’s been encouraging restaurants to add patio seating to draw more patrons. Other pandemic-vulnerable businesses, like the 11-screen
Silverspot Cinema, won’t arrive until sometime in 2022.
“Movie theaters are probably harder-hit than any industry right now, so that will take some redesigning,” Schmier says of the cineplex, which hasn’t started construction yet. “The idea for us was to offer tenants that don’t look like the same chains on every street in South Florida. These aren’t Chipotles or Starbucks.”
On the way is a national organic grocery chain — a replacement for Lucky’s Market, which filed for bankruptcy, Schmier says. Opening in August will be the first Boca Raton outpost of Italian red-sauce minichain Lynora’s Kitchen, which has locations in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens and Tequesta.
Also coming soon this fall: The first Boca location of Naked Taco, chef Ralph Pagano’s clubby Mexican restaurant, which has other eateries in Coconut Creek and Miami Beach.