Mogul gets stuck in a Grut
A vastly expensive redevelopment of a classic Firestone tire garage has hit the skids. But Page Six hears that its owner thinks it might still turn the corner.
Miami mogul David Grutman — who’s had a string of successes in Miami nightlife, including the ever-popular LIV nightclub — seems to have finally got himself a lemon after he bought the art deco building for some $10 million and spent four years turning it into a complex with three restaurants, with all three of them shut down within a year.
The trio of spots — an upscale version of a classic 1950s diner, Winker’s, a sweets store called Toothfairy Bakery and trendy Sushi
Fly Chicken — opened in September and were immediately packed with Grutman’s many celebrity friends, including Pharrell Williams, David and Victoria Beckham and Foodgod Jonathan Cheban.
But the onetime rubber emporium quickly began to look a little . . . tired. Winker’s and Toothfairy closed up shop less than 60 days later.
Then, Sushi Fly Chicken — which hosted birthdays for both Victoria and her son, Romeo — also crash-landed recently, and Miami spies told us all the storefronts are boarded up. (Some locals have even been joking that the spots were cursed with a “Posh and Becks Hex,” kidding that the couple are the only ones who seemed to eat there.)
But insiders told Page Six exclusively that they’re not actually boarded up. There’s once again construction going on behind the scenes, because they’re moving Sushi Fly Chicken into the larger Winker’s space and turning the vacated premises into a bar fronted by the wildly popular Canadian-American bro-centric influencers the Nelk Boys, who have their own line of hard seltzers called Happy Dad.
It’ll be the first time that the prank-happy group — which boasts a stunning 8.5 million followers across platforms — has had its own brick-and-mortar bar in which to sling its popular bubbly booze.