Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Foxy Brown restaurant moving to new location in Fort Lauderdale
The Foxy Brown, the intimate and unassuming downtown Fort Lauderdale favorite from Be Nice Restaurants group, is moving.
Don’t panic — it’s good news: The new Foxy Brown will be a 10-minute walk away in the former Good Spirits space just off Federal Highway, a larger, brighter stage for its well-regarded menu, with more parking, a bigger bar and a larger outdoor patio.
Owner Elliot Wolf is still working on the timeline for the transition into the new location — it’s “beautiful, turnkey,” he says — and estimates it’s 40-60 days away. Wolf says he is in discussions with another restaurant to take over his current lease.
The move from the current location at 723 E. Broward Blvd. to the new space at 476 N. Federal Highway is being made for reasons that are obvious to even Foxy’s most dedicated fans.
“It’s too small. Especially in this environment, people do not want to be sitting on top of each other,” Wolf says of pandemic dining habits. “The restaurant took a huge hit because it was so small.”
To be sure, there will be those who miss the old Foxy Brown, a warm and welcoming re-imagining of a small storefront just east of Federal Highway that had been the longtime home of the old News Room Café.
It was a hit from the get-go in 2012 with a singular approach to comfort food — at once elevated and sincere — and managed to retain the feel of a local, word-ofmouth kind of place even as the neighborhood grew vertically around it.
A few years ago, the Foxy
Brown added sidewalk seating to handle the overflow, especially critical during its popular weekend brunches, which featured over-thetop sweets and sometimes a pajama theme.
“Sure, I’ll always have an emotional attachment to it. That was the second restaurant we opened after Coconuts [on Fort Lauderdale beach]. But at the same time, the business has grown,” Wolf says. “Foxy had gone as far as it was going to go there.”
The Be Nice Restaurants group includes the Foxy Brown, Coconuts, G&B Oyster Bar, Top Hat Delicatessen and two locations of Lunchroom. It also is known for the ubiquitous “be nice” car stickers.
Wolf says there may be some adjustments to the Foxy Brown menu in the new location, but patrons will otherwise find “the same faces, same people, same style of food.”
Wolf has an artist working on a drawing of the original Foxy Brown to hang in the new location.
“We’re never going to forget where we came from,” he says.
Good Spirits Fifth and Fed, from veteran Fort Lauderdale restaurateur Frank Zaffere’s Old School Hospitality, opened in 2018 with a glamorous, mid-century vibe and a menu that won three-and-a-half-star praise from Sun Sentinel reviewer Michael Mayo.
But the Fifth Street strip center location, just a short block from Federal Highway but obscured by buildings, was a challenge, according to Zaffere. Good Spirits was one of many particularly unfortunate COVID-19 casualties in the South Florida restaurant market.
The new space has more than double the seating capacity and a covered patio that seats 70. The bar is three times as big as the current one, according to Wolf.
“A lot of people didn’t even realize we have a liquor license. This allows us to have a full-on bar,” he says.
Wolf points out that in trading a space that sits on Broward Boulevard to one a block off Federal Highway, he also is gaining a 300-space parking garage in the same building. The lot behind the Foxy Brown has less than 20 spots, and they are shared with neighboring businesses.
“A lot of people would not come for Foxy because they didn’t want to fight for parking,” he says.
Expanded outdoor space also will allow the restaurant to better live up to its namesake — the Foxy Brown is named after a friend’s dog.
“The patio will allow more people to bring their dogs,” Wolf says.
The Foxy Brown is at 723 E. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Hours are 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Wednesday- Friday, 9:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday and 9:30-9 p.m. Sunday. Brunch served 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Call 754-200-4236 or visit MyFoxyBrown.com.