Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
What’s it like to eat out now?
We give reopened Palm Beach County restaurants a test run
For the first time in two months, we’ll be able to dine in at restaurants across South Florida. But what can we expect?
To find out, we explored the restaurant scene in Palm Beach County, the first in our region to reopen.
On May 11, Palm Beach restaurants could open at 25 percent capacity. And on May 18, restaurants across the state, including
Broward and Miami-Dade, will be able to open at 50 percent capacity.
Some of the other provisos include:
■ A minimum of six feet separating parties, and parties should not exceed 10 people.
■ Tables and other areas will need to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected after each use.
■ Outdoor dining should be prioritized and restaurants should limit inside waiting areas.
■ Bar areas in restaurants should remain closed.
■ Restaurants should either use paper menus (for single use and then disposed of ) or have laminated menus that should be cleaned after each use.
We went to a variety of eateries in Palm Beach County to see how well a small sampling of restaurants are following these rules and to give diners in Broward and Miami-Dade counties some idea of what to expect.
The restaurants all made attempts to adjust to the new normal, but some are faring better than others.
Restaurant bars, perhaps by their very nature of having a convivial atmosphere, seem to struggle with social distancing the most. Some restaurants have roped off their bar areas so that only staff can access them to bring a cocktail or glass of wine back to your table. Others seem to have given
in to the pent up desire of many South Floridians to, once again, party hearty.
By and large, masks and gloves were evident everywhere and both staffers and patrons refrained from touching (no handshakes, fist bumps or high fives).
Here’s what we experienced.
El Camino in Delray Beach
15 NE Second Ave, Delray Beach. 561-865-5350. ElCaminoDelray.com.
Tuesday, May 12, 4:15 p.m. El Camino usually has crowds spilling out on the sidewalk in the heart of downtown Delray Beach’s restaurant and bar enclave.
But the restaurant has yet to reactivate its happy hour or equally popular Taco Tuesday. There is a sign bearing that bad news just to the right of the host stand. A few people, no more than six during our stay, wait to be seated, something that took about five to 10 minutes at the most. The bar, tantalizingly close, is blocked off, so there will be no waiting there.
The staff, still as effusively friendly as before coronavirus came on the scene, are all vigorously following the rules. All of the workers are wearing masks. The bathrooms are sanitized frequently.
Tables indoors have hand sanitizers, encased in antique-looking metal dispensers that blend into the decor. But tables under massive garage doors flung open, just on the edge of being outside, instead have packets of Fresh Nap Plus Hand Wipes in a container that looks like it might hold sugar packets for your coffee. The only problem with this is that the subtropical forces seem to have evaporated much of the moisture. It might take three or more hand wipes to get the job done.
Max’s Grille in Boca Raton
404 Plaza Real, Boca Raton. 561-368-0080. MaxsGrille.com.
Tuesday, May 12, 6:30 p.m. This restaurant in Mizner Park, which always seemed to have a crowd pre-COVID-19, doesn’t appear to be very different now. The outdoor bar vacillates between being merely popular to being nerve-jangling packed.
Around happy hour time, the two bartenders there are frantically working, trying to take care of the 35 people or so either bellied up to the bar or collected around the outdoor hightops and tables. To be fair, some are waiting for their takeout food, but even those people are not averse to sipping a cocktail as the sun begins to wane. Several of them are nursing their drink waiting for their food to be brought out.
It takes about eight minutes to place a drink order. It then takes about 12 minutes for it to be set down in front of you. In the interim one of the bartenders, and then the other, dash inside in desperate and fruitless searches for plastic cups. Finally one of them scores, saying to the other, “I think this is it. When the cups run out, we’ll have to go to glassware.”
But the crowd, and yes, it’s a crowd around 6-6:30 p.m., doesn’t seem to mind at all, cutting the bartenders some slack. And while there is no adherence whatsoever to social distancing, the patrons are plenty sociable, sharing quarantine stories and laughing about these surreal times we are living in. The whole scene left us uncomfortable, as it turns out, the only time we fell that way all week.
We reached out to Max’s Grille, which responded with this email: “Max’s Grille was only open for takeout and contactless curbside pickups on Tuesday, May 12. In preparation for opening for dinein on Wednesday our tables were set on the patio at the required 6 ft apart and some guests choose to eat their takeout food at those tables.”
O’Shea’s Irish Pub in West Palm Beach
531 Clematis St. West Palm Beach. 561-833-3865. OsheasPub.com.
Thursday, May 14, 8:30 p.m.
Bar areas seem to be the Achilles’ heel of COVID-19. That whole don’t-approach-the-bar thing doesn’t appear to be enforced, at least not at O’Sheas, which on Thursday night was the only really hopping place on Clematis Street.
To be fair, even that distinction doesn’t really translate into a lot of people. At any given time there might have been four or five customers getting drinks at O’Sheas front bar. Then people would either slip back outside on Clematis or, especially if with a group of friends, head to the back patio for a more loungey evening. Although there weren’t any tables with more than 10 people, they were positioned awfully close.
Other than the staff, there was not a mask in sight, though we did notice patrons washing their hands vigorously in the bathrooms.
Troy’s Bar-Be-Cue in Boynton Beach
1920 Federal Highway, Boynton Beach. 561-740-1125. BBQtroys.com. Wednesday, May 13, 11:45 a.m.
Even now, when they could have diners inside the restaurant, Troy’s does not. At least they don’t at the Boynton Beach location, which quickly became a muststop for barbecue enthusiasts after it opened in 1996, curiously as a seafood place where people kept ordering the meat instead (a second eatery has branched out to Boca Raton).
The restaurant known as much for doing barbecue the old-school way in gi-normous steel smokers and grills outside in back as for its super secret sauce, is relying on drive-through only for now. If you want to eat there, you can do so at a few tables set up on the side of the restaurant, under a tent, with a cooling misting machine to take the scorch out of the day.
None of that seems to matter to Troy’s fans. There were rarely less that five cars waiting patiently in line while we were there. In back, at those smokers, a man who looked a lot like owner Anthony Barber (a son of founder chef Troy Davis) says to us around 11:45 a.m. — a mere 15 minutes after they opened for the day, mind you — “I’m glad you came now. I think we’re going to run out of meat the way it’s going.”
Sandbar at Boston’s on the Beach in Delray Beach
40 S. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach. 561-665-4669. BostonsSandbar.com.
Tuesday, May 12, 2:15 p.m. Before you enter the oceanside tiki hut and al fresco dining area, you get a mini tutorial from a gatekeeper. Though he’s wearing shorts and framed by surfboards and bamboo, he’s all business: There will be no visiting the bar nor any “mingling between tables,” he tells us in a rote manner.
Upon entering we see that the tiki bar is taped off, but that probably has more to do with a crew exchanging the dried out thatch covering with fresher palm leaves. There is another indoor/outdoor bar behind the tiki bar that actually serves up the beverages and cocktails. Sure enough, only the restaurant staff is allowed anywhere near it.
As for that mingling, that is almost impossible not to do since the tables, particularly the ones with the best view of the beach across the street, are perilously close, not anywhere close to six feet apart.
On the tables there are no condiments, no salt and pepper. The servers, young women wearing peek-a-buttock short-shorts and face masks, hand out paper menus. This works in theory, but even the slightest ocean breeze whips the menus off of the table, forcing you to chase them and, in the process, accidently mingling with neighboring tables. Just before the food arrives, plastic eating utensils are dropped off.
We see one table get a pre-pandemic wipe down by one of the servers before another party is seated. But later, we watch as another staffer doing a thorough job of disinfecting the tables and chairs. She also keeps the bathrooms as close to pristine as anyone could expect.
Speaking of bathrooms, Sandbar would like you to exit through the back, just past the bathrooms. They aren’t a stickler about it, but that would put you closer to the valet parking, something we missed upon arrival. We parked across the street at the beach. The meter machines were covered in a plastic shroud with a note attached saying they were out of service, since the beach is closed, we surmised. We were wrong. Just as we arrive at our cars, a Delray Beach police officer drives up and tells us he’s about to start putting tickets on windshields. We thank him and scurry away.
Pipeline Poke Co. in West Palm Beach
310 S. Dixie Highway, Suite 300. West Palm Beach. 561-899-3288. PipelinePokeCo.com.
Thursday, May 14, 8 p.m. This family-owned fast-casual restaurant is on a quiet stretch of Dixie Highway off of an unusually unplugged Clematis Street (the “historical heart of downtown West Palm Beach” is torn up with a mammoth street construction project).
Earlier in the day, on the telephone, one of the staff tells us that they are allowing dining inside, but in order to comply with the 25 percent capacity rule only eight people can sit down at the tables. Most of them are pushed up against the window with no chairs, clearly not inviting people to sit.
The father and son behind the counter wear gloves and masks as they build the bowls from a neatly arranged assembly line of ingredients. Up on a bank of TV screens, surfer videos are playing, at first glance perhaps a little incongruous with the vibe of the nation, but a welcome respite after you have a moment to shake off the dark coronavirus cloud
Grandview Public Market in West Palm Beach
1401 Clare Ave., West Palm Beach. 561-323-4103. GrandviewPublic.com.
Thursday, May 14, 6:30 p.m. This food hall, with its industrialchic look and wide demographic draw, has a sign out front saying that there are some new ways of doing things: social distancing will be adhered to; there will be sanitizing tables and “high touch areas on an amplified schedule”; and they will keep count of guests to stay within the parameters of Florida regulations.
All well and fine, but if not handled adeptly, this is exactly the kind of thing that could grind Grandview’s effortlessly chill vibe into the factory concrete floor. Thankfully, while we were there, this was not the case. Occasionally there was a bit of a huddle at the indoor bar, but the situation would settle itself before an intervention was needed.
And as we sat outside on the elongated deck, enjoying a ridiculously strong frosé, we noticed a worker strolling through the tables and benches, vigorously wiping down “high touch areas.”
By the way, Grandview was the only place we went to all week that has gone completely cashless.
The Griddle in Boca Raton
275 NE Spanish River Blvd., Boca Raton. 561-395-4929. MeetMeAtTheGriddle.com.
Wednesday, May 13, 10 a.m. There are a few tables outside of this restaurant tucked inside the North Dixie Center. The hours are mostly for breakfast and lunch, although there is dinner service on Thursdays-Saturdays from 5-7:30. The Griddle bills itself as the oldest restaurant in Boca Raton, having opened in 1945.
Now, in 2020, the staff wears masks, even if occasionally one of them might forget to pull them back up over their mouth for a second or two when offering a coffee refill. Everyone seems to know everyone here, so social distancing might be considered stand-offish. One of the women as much as says so as she takes a seat opposite a customer for a little chat.
And yet even a landmark like the Griddle has made some accommodations to coronavirus.
Of the eight booths lined up on the opposite wall from the diner counter, only three are open for patrons. The tables in the dining room and outside on the sidewalk are spaced far apart. But we didn’t see anyone disinfecting the laminated menus or the tables once customers had left. Yet, it must be said: The restaurant is spotless.
Bolay in West Palm Beach
1880 Okeechobee Blvd., Suite A. West Palm Beach. 561-815-5185. Bolay.com/locations/west-palm-beach. Thursday, May 14, 7 p.m.
There is a hand sanitizer dispenser at the start of the line where you begin ordering the ingredients you want in your bowl meal. Above it is a sign that reads “Eating clean starts with your hands!” The exclamation point is theirs.
There is another sign that says that the maximum occupancy is 116 people, so that’s 25 people under the 25 percent rule. It’s hard to see how a fast-casual like Bolay could sustain a profit margin with that kind of handicap, but then again, Bolay is a really fast fastcasual. In a fraction of the time it would take a burger joint to fry up your meal, Bolay has served up your hot meal, packed it in a bag and handed you a receipt through a plexiglass divider at the register.
We also noticed a brisk business in takeout. Oh, and unless you ask for a glass bowl because you are eating your meal there, they default to a plastic bowl, the same one they use for takeout.
Le Sorelle Restaurant in Boca Raton
6020 N Federal Highway, Boca Raton. 561-235-5301. LeSorelleRestaurant.com.
Tuesday, May 12, 8 p.m. Fine dining, when it’s staged just right, means forgetting for a little while the outside world.
With the exception of everyone wearing masks, both in the front of the house and in the right-there kitchen with its dominating wood-burning oven, that is more or less done at Le Sorelle, which translates to “the sisters.”
Regulars must know the menu by heart, but first-timers, like us, were given recommendations by one of the Mazzella family members, all offshoots from the three sisters who own the Boca Raton eatery and its sister (sorry, we couldn’t resist) restaurant in Delray Beach.
So, no menus. And there are the masks, of course
But if you can see past that, the three cozy dining rooms that make up the Boca Raton location could shelter you from COVID-19. It’s hard to keep the pandemic front and center in your mind with the attentive clan of cooks circling your table and swooping in with rustic takes on grilled branzino, beef braciola, seafood risotto, eggplant parmigiana and shots of limoncello.