South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Recognition is a ‘gift and a curse’
Small cafe near Hollywood beach adjusts to being ranked at No. 13 in U.S. by Yelp review forum
Cafe Club by Les Artistes near Hollywood beach does not look like much from the outside: a sidewalk scattering of small tables and rattan chairs beneath an orange-tinted window adorned with fake cherry blossoms. There’s not much inside: a tiny space with eight stools and a cramped kitchen counter with a dual crepemaker, toaster oven and $5,000 Rimini espresso machine.
Does this humble breakfast and lunch spot that cranks out sandwiches, crepes, coffee and
smoothies really belong among the nation’s culinary elite?
Cafe Club landed at No. 13 on Yelp’s “Top 100 Places to Eat in the U.S. for 2019,” a list released this month by the popular crowd-sourced review forum. In August, Yelp ranked Cafe Club the top eatery in Broward County.
“It’s crazy,” owner Corey Afriat says. “You’re just trying to do what you can to make people happy, utilizing the space and the resources that you have, and all of a sudden it’s the best thing on the planet.”
“I’m happy with whatever happens … You want to make money and it’s definitely good for business, but you also don’t want to take on too much responsibility or have people leave disappointed.” Corey Afriat, owner of
Cafe Club
I wouldn’t call Cafe Club the best thing on the planet, nor the best restaurant in Broward. It’s a nice little neighborhood coffee shop that happens to have a good location — across from the tourist-heavy Margaritaville resort near the Hollywood Broadwalk — and a friendly vibe.
After a few visits last week and interviews with Afriat, manager Johnny Medina and happy customers old and new, I’d call it a homegrown, feel-good success story.
But I don’t know if Yelp is doing anyone — the eatery nor its own credibility — any favors by giving it such a lofty ranking. Cafe Club capably prepares products mostly brought in from elsewhere, including a special coffee blend roasted in Hialeah. The Nutella crepe is fine, but no better than dozens of others found around town. Cafe Club is good, but hardly Top 15 exceptional. And now the curious from near and far will come expecting greatness.
“It’s a gift and a curse,” Afriat, 29, says. “I’m happy with whatever happens … You want to make money and it’s definitely good for business, but you also don’t want to take on too much responsibility or have people leave disappointed.”
In an email, a Yelp spokesperson explains that its top 100 list encompasses a wide range of eateries, from food trucks to whitelinen dining: “It’s more accessible than a list of all fine-dining establishments … It’s also powered by the people, not a small group of restaurant critics, so it’s really representative of places consumers are loving right now.”
Since the Top 100 list was released, a steady stream of tourists, locals and foodies have marched up to the small storefront at 313 Johnson St., smartphones in hand. Some squint through the window and enter hesitantly. Others shake their heads in disbelief and walk away.
Does Afriat consider Cafe Club the best restaurant in Broward?
“I’d say we are the best cafe in Broward,” he says.
“When it comes to service with a smile, these guys can’t be beat,” say Jack Clark, a longtime customer. He comes every day for a double espresso.
The background story is nice: It all began in 2015 when Afriat wanted to prevent his father from leasing retail space the
family owns across from Margaritaville (still under construction at the time) to the biggest coffee chain on the planet.
“I love coffee and I didn’t want it to become a Starbucks,” Afriat says. The Hollywood native says he loves the funky nature of the Broadwalk and didn’t want to see it overrun by chain stores. So Afriat, who graduated from the University of Central Florida with a marketing degree and had been in the fashion and sneaker business, opened a coffee shop of his own. The name is a play on the French term “cafe clope,” low-key places in France where people get coffee and cigarettes in the morning.
Afriat’s father, Elie, is Moroccan-French, but the vibe at Cafe Club is distinctly American — the outdoor tables do not have ashtrays and I didn’t encounter anyone smoking on several visits. Instead, sun worshipers sipped fruit smoothies through pasta straws (Hollywood recently banned plastic straws along the beach).
In the four years Cafe Club has been open, Afriat says he has never spent a dollar on marketing and has never advertised with Yelp. There is no sign, just the logo he designed on the door and windows. Parking can be a hassle. One employee calls the eatery “a nook.”
“We’re purposely tucked away — it takes an effort to find us,” Afriat says. “This all happened organically, by word of mouth.”
Among the newcomers last week: Margaritaville guests Michalla Devlin and her fiance, Dan Dalsey.
“I was obsessed by the design when we walked by. It just looked so cool, I said, ‘We have to go in there,’” says Devlin, of Ocean City, N.J. They tried it after researching the Yelp ratings and were on their second visit when I bumped into them. They proclaimed their French toast with fresh fruit breakfast “awesome,” and Dalsey loved the pasta straw in his smoothie (he hated the mushy, disintegrating paper straws at the resort).
Dalsey says the dedication of Afriat and his staff of five is evident: “I own a small business, and you can tell he’s very passionate and hands-on.”
Hit Cafe Club right, and friendly conversation and a pleasant outdoor meal with an ocean breeze await. Walk into the
600-square-foot store at the wrong time and claustrophobia may take hold as a crowd converges and food orders back up.
“It works somehow,” says Medina, who left a job as a pool attendant at Margaritaville two years ago after being a steady customer. “People pay, they eat, they leave.”
Afriat says the eatery averages 100 checks daily and that the most has been
140. He says business has been up 30 percent since December, but he doesn’t know if it’s attributable to the Yelp boost, peak tourist season or both. “You just need a couple more hands sometimes,” Medina says. “Even when it’s raining, people come.”
The eatery is fast-casual: Orders are taken at the front counter, then food is delivered to tables. Eggs and French toast are cooked on the crepemaker. Coffee is served in
paper cups. There is no stove, no open flame and no dishwasher. Dishes are washed by hand. A small back room features a threesection sink and a meat slicer.
Coffee comes from Cafe Supremo in Hialeah, bread from Protano’s Bakery in Hollywood, croissants from nearby Giorgio’s Bakery. Afriat’s signature spicy, crunchy tuna melt ($14) is topped with jalapeno kettle potato chips and uses canned Wild Planet tuna. Crepe batter is prepared in small batches in house. The coffee, a special blend of Colombian Arabica and Nigerian Robusta, is particularly good, with whole beans offered for sale at
$27 for a 2.2 pound-bag. The cafe has a perfect
5-star average from nearly
400 reviews on Yelp. It also has a perfect 5-star rating from 118 reviews on TripAdvisor, which ranks Cafe Club No. 1 of 535 restaurants in Hollywood, above fine-dining destinations Monkitail in the Diplomat Resort (No. 2) and JWB Prime Steak and Seafood in Margaritaville (No. 5).
Raised expectations can lead to disappointment, and the strain from crowds can cause an eatery to fall victim to its own success. When nearby Le Tub had its burger named best in the country by GQ Magazine in 2005 and then was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show, it triggered big crowds, long waits and blow-back from locals and tourists who proclaimed it overrated.
Afriat says he hopes Cafe Club doesn’t experience a similar fate. Afriat wants to move into vacant space next door in the next year and expand offerings to beer, wine and evening service. He wants to offer Wi-Fi, proper ceramic cups for coffee, and a more comfortable atmosphere. “A down-to-earth place that’s not hipster or bougie where people can hang out,” Afriat says.
The first year of Cafe Club was a struggle because the block was still a construction mess. Afriat says he survived by drumming up business with Margaritaville construction workers. “I told them if they came in and got breakfast sandwiches, coffee would be $1,” he says. “They kept coming back.”
Others keep returning, too. I don’t pretend to know why Yelp and its users choose to shower some unlikely eateries with love (a few years back the beneficiary was an unremarkable Cuban restaurant in a mobile home community). But Cafe Club seems a place worth rooting for, where sunny dispositions have conquered hearts, minds and bellies — and websites and apps.