Broward Meat & Fish hangs out its shingle at old Penn Dutch site
Commuters are noticing something new near the busy intersection of State Road 7 and West Sample Road in northwest Broward County.
Signs that identified Penn Dutch Meat and Seafood’s Margate store have been partly covered by a banner announcing that a new store is coming soon to the site. Now, Broward Meat & Fish’s circular cow and fish logo hangs below the familiar cartoon figure of a Pennsylvania Dutchman that served for years as Penn Dutch’s trademark.
But food shoppers needn’t make plans just yet to find out how the new store’s offerings measure up to what they remember buying at Penn
Dutch. Broward Meat & Fish’s Margate store won’t be ready to open until February at the earliest, a member of the local chain’s founding family said Wednesday.
Owners announced in January that they had purchased their defunct former competitor’s longtime home and planned to completely gut and remodel its interior before opening their fourth Broward County store at the site.
Penn Dutch, founded in the 1970s in Hollywood, declared bankruptcy in September 2019 after multiple findings by state food safety inspectors of listeria contamination throughout the company’s Hollywood and Margate stores. The two stores were sanitized before they were sold, sales agents said.
When complete, the Margate store will be larger than Broward Meat & Fish’s existing stores in Pembroke Pines, Lauderdale Lakes and North Lauderdale. The larger footprint will enable the company to expand its already huge inventory of custom-cut meats, fresh and frozen seafood, hot prepared Caribbean-style dishes and packaged food brands not found in the big-chain supermarkets.
Initially, owners had hoped to complete renovations in time for a fall opening, but they acknowledged the scope of work could take a year.
And that’s how the project is shaping up, said Athalia Lujo, daughter of owners Ruben and Denise Lujo and the company’s general counsel.
“We actually just recently started the construction process after more demolition than we expected was required,” she said. “We basically are starting with a blank slate in the store, building everything up from scratch. We’re hopeful that we’ll be open in February of 2022, but that’s a hopeful open date.”
A peek inside the store this week confirmed that much work remains by Davie-based RMB General Contractors. The interior has been stripped down to its steel rafters, concrete floor and reinforcement beams. Insulated metal panels, still in manufacturer’s wrapping, are stacked on the floor in the building’s southern end. When assembled, the panels will become the walls of the store’s refrigerated food storage
and meat-cutting areas.
Then will come the walls, flooring, shelves, counters, coolers, display racks, interior signage and checkout aisles.
If all goes well, the company will begin accepting applications to staff the new store in December or
January, Lujo said.