NBA’S APPROVED LIST?
Which Miami restaurants made A look at selection process, protocols
Restaurants are an important, but often overlooked part of NBA life.
They’re where coaches, players and team staff go to decompress during a long road trip. They’re where bonds are formed between teammates. They’re where wins are celebrated and even losses are forgotten.
But COVID-19 has changed almost everything about the 2020-21 NBA season, and the dining experience is included on that long list.
To account for the risk of players, coaches and team staff eating inside a restaurant during a road trip amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the NBA and players association made a list of approved restaurants in each market that agreed to meet the league’s specific health and safety protocols.
In Miami, the restaurants that made the list are Moxie’s in Brickell, Prime 112 and Prime Italian in Miami Beach, Red Rooster Overtown, and Zuma in downtown Miami. That list, which includes restaurants in areas relatively close to AmericanAirlines Arena, is expected to change and grow throughout the season.
“Basically, we have to look at all the criteria set forth in the health and safety protocols that the NBA created and their safety memos,” said Steve Stowe, who is the vice president and executive director of the Miami Heat Charitable Fund and was charged with taking a lead role in helping to select the local restaurants that made the approved list. “... We made a short list and obviously the list is going to change throughout the season. I don’t think this is what we’re going to stick with.”
Players, coaches and team staff can eat at other restaurants besides the approved ones, but the approved restaurants are strongly encouraged by the league. To eat at a restaurant not on the list and avoid punishment from the
NBA, it must be a fully privatized experience where a team buys out the entire space or the meal has to be consumed outdoors.
But the health and safety guidelines that approved restaurants must follow are also strict.
“We had a representative from the league come and do a walking tour of the space,” Red Rooster Overtown partner Derek Fleming said of the vetting process. “Then that person came into dine and really had their own personal view and perspective of how the place was operating and laid out. Then they sat down and we had a meeting about what our practices have been.”
It helped that the Heat organization was already familiar with Red Rooster, which formally opened in December after its scheduled March 2020 debut was delayed because of the pandemic. Red Rooster and the Heat teamed up to put together food relief events this past summer.
“They kind of knew our perspective about really being responsible and community focused, I think,” Fleming said. “So because we’ve done some work with the Heat, I think we became a candidate from having been involved.”
Red Rooster then had to agree to follow the league’s detailed health and safety protocols to earn a spot on the list.
Those guidelines include compliance with physical distancing requirements; masks for all staff and guests when not seated, eating or drinking; as few staff
members as possible attending to team diners; and secondary entrances and exits to minimize contact with others.
“We have multiple entrances that can get players in and out without having to go through the main dining room,” Fleming said. “Once they’re in the space, we can either have it where they’re closed off and just have a nice, quiet experience among themselves or if they want to be a part of the general experience of the restaurant. They can choose to do either one. There are multiple restrooms, there are different stairways to get to those areas. So I think we just had to show flexibility in terms of having it be a discreet experience depending on what the preference of the player or guest is.”
Even at approved restaurants, team diners are encouraged to eat outdoors in an area that’s more than six feet apart from non-team guests. If players, coaches or team staff opt to eat indoors, the approved restaurant is required to reserve a private indoor room with the appropriate air circulation.
“When the NBA gave us their guidelines for what it needed to look like for COVID compliance, that was sort of our gold standard,” Fleming said. “So we’re cross-hatching that with the city’s requirements and standards to make sure we cover our bases on both.”
For Myles Chefetz, the founder and CEO of Myles Restaurant Group that owns Prime 112 and Prime Italian, one of the biggest differences is that he’s not getting individual texts from players these days. Instead, each NBA team has designated a specific person to set up reservations in order for approved restaurants to have the necessary time to prepare for their arrival.
Chefetz was a member of the Miami-Dade County task force that worked with infectious disease experts last year to build the health and safety protocols that restaurants had to follow to reopen during the pandemic.
“They already knew that I was very involved with the county, coming up with the protocols,” Chefetz said. “The assumption was we were taking extra special care and necessary steps to have a safe environment, plus I’ve been here a long time.”
While Prime 112 has long been known as a hotspot for athletes, Chefetz said he does not take the “approved restaurant” title for granted.
“It’s an honor,” Chefetz said. “Prime 112 specifically even more than Prime Italian has always been a hub for the NBA, both for the Heat and visiting teams. So it’s nothing unique for us. But certainly in COVID, it’s an honor to be considered as two of the five restaurants that qualify. It means a lot, and also it continues the continuity of having sports celebrities at Prime 112.
“You can’t take it for granted, though. Because if we were doing the wrong thing, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter that it’s a place where sports players like to dine. It would be of no consequence if we weren’t following the protocols.”
Red Rooster was an obvious choice for different reasons, as a Blackowned restaurant from celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson that sits in Overtown. The site of the restaurant was formerly Clyde Killens’ iconic pool hall, where artists and visiting celebrities would gather after performances at Overtown’s Historic Lyric Theater across the street.
“That was like a no-brainer,” Stowe said of selecting Red Rooster.
Fleming called the designation “a real badge of honor” for the restaurant and Overtown.
“This historic neighborhood has really suffered the brunt of a lot of neglect and unfortunately has had a lot of economic marginalization over the last couple decades,” Fleming said. “Part of our mission in building this was to create another perception for this amazing neighborhood, for Overtown. To be part of a new narrative . ... That history coupled with the revitalization of this community, and now the NBA has recognized
us as a premier location in this pandemic as a safe haven in this pandemic.”
This NBA season will feel different for all involved for obvious reasons. But the approved restaurants hope to
provide some sense of normalcy for visiting players around the league.
“Even us from a team standpoint, we’re educating ourselves,” Stowe said. “We’ve all immersed ourselves with this. We’re all evolving. I think the key word is evolving right now and learning how to adapt and really educating ourselves.”