Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Maggie’s Favorite Coffee and Bakeshop opens
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Now open
Maggie’s Favorite Coffee and Bakeshop, Oakland Park
Crepes, cupcakes, muffins, breakfast sandwiches — and plenty of Italian java — are the stars of this breakfast-lunch cafe, which soft-opened in mid-January on Oakland Park Boulevard. The bakery, owned by Magdalena “Maggie” Amaro and partner Milan Lazic, offers a chill menu to match its carnation-pink walls adorned in cursive “coffee” signs and floral murals. There are cakes by the slice and avocado toast, cinnamon rolls and acai bowls, prosciutto and fig jam and savory chicken bacon ranch crepes, and turkey pesto and barbecue pulled-pork sandwiches. Amaro tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel that a grand-opening party is planned for Feb. 18. 830 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Suite 101, Oakland Park; 954-2821190; MaggiesFavorite.com
Napoli Now! Pizza Napoletana, Cooper City
This Neapolitan-style pizzeria from owners Gaetano and Guy Sperduto quietly debuted in early December In the Cooper Square plaza, across the street from Cooper City High School. The pizzeria dishes 14 pies topped with Italy-imported mortadella, salsiccia and nduja sausages, thin-sliced prosciutto, spicy pepperoni and broccoli rabe, along with housemade meatballs, five sandwiches and four salads. 9630 Stirling Road, No. 102, Cooper City; 754-888-9966; NapoliNow.com
Spadaro of Deerfield Beach
Antonio Spadaro’s original namesake restaurant is in New Rochelle, N.Y., while the South Florida location is “more like a delicatessen,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “Our customer in New York also comes to ... this area and we wanted to bring a piece of Italy to Florida with our unique Italian specialty products.” Grand-opening activities are planned this month: a free sample buffet on Feb. 17 and a 50% discount on the entire menu. 1330 S. Federal Highway, Deerfield Beach; 954-596-5330; instagram.com/spadaro_dinein_ takeout
The Rooftop at Kimpton Shorebreak Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort
Just a few blocks from the sands of The Strip on Fort Lauderdale beach, this hotel has been making lots of changes (including dropping “Goodland” from the name). Back in October, it closed the main restaurant Botanic, replacing it with La Fuga, a “coastal Italian cuisine” concept in a soft opening. Now La Fuga as well as the new Rooftop lounge scheduled a grand opening on Feb. 9. The Rooftop at Shorebreak will have its own menu, a Mediterranean tapas-style concept. 2900 Riomar St., Fort Lauderdale. 954-908-7301, ext. 3; shorebreakfortlauderdale.com/ fort-lauderdale-restaurant/ rooftop
Alpen Bakery Store, Pembroke Pines
Two married bakers hoping to provide a better life for their two daughters relocated from their native Chile to Cooper City and plan to open their new Austrian-Latin fusion bakery in Pembroke Pines sometime in February.
The pastry shop, owned by Anja Frings Uribarri and Ruben Molina Lobos, specializes in fruit tartlets and chocolate muffins but also tantalizing exotic pastries, including Austrian-style
sachertorte (a denser, chocolate-glazed chocolate cake layered with fruit jam), alfajores (dulce de leche sandwich cookies) and moka cake (topped with mocha buttercream). 8937 Taft St.; 954-646-7100; search for “Alpen Bakery Store” on Facebook.com
Rice Mediterranean Kitchen, Fort Lauderdale
This Miami-based boutique chain of fast-casuals has been serving up Eastern Mediterranean flavors since the early 2000s. There are seven locations in Miami-Dade County. The Fort Lauderdale location debuted on Feb. 1 (per social media) in the Bank of America Plaza at Las Olas City Centre, alongside other eateries such as Coyo Taco, Subway and Smoothie King. The extensive menu includes kabobs, wraps and falafel platters. There are also tenderloin, chicken, snapper and sirloin platters.
401 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; RiceKitchen. com
World of Beer Bar & Kitchen, Royal Palm Beach
This chain emporium of craft-beer suds, wine, cocktails and pub fare debuted its latest South Florida taproom on Feb. 4 on Southern Boulevard, roughly 3 miles west of the iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre. The beer hall touts a mind-numbing variety of draft and bottled brews (there are hundreds, from saisons and stouts to hard seltzers and mead), and its menu features soft-baked pretzels, chicken wings doused in eight sauces and dry rubs, salads and tacos, six styles of hamburgers and four flatbreads, and entrees including steak frites and grilled Atlantic salmon brushed with India Pale Ale glaze. 11121 Southern Blvd., Royal Palm Beach; WorldofBeer.com
Just Pizza & Wing Co., Coral Springs
After months-long permitting delays, this Buffalo, N.Y.-born franchise opened its first South Florida pizza-wing stop on Feb. 1 under local franchisee Noel Morreale. The eatery’s name, to be fair, sells short its sheer number of specialty configurations, such as the 3 Cheese Steak Pizza with a mozzarella-Swiss-white American blend atop thin-sliced sirloin steak, and wings with intriguing (bourbon whiskey, blackberry barbecue, Cajun honey) and scald-your-mouth-out flavors (“lethal hot” Buffalo style). 2359 N. University Drive, Coral Springs; 754-240-4887; JustPizzaUSA.com
Isla & Co., West Palm Beach
An all-day cafe from New York’s Parched Hospitality Group, this 140-seater had a soft opening in early December next door to Grandview Public Market in West Palm Beach’s growing Warehouse District. On the menu are brunch and dinner dishes from “down under” — a nod to co-owners Barry Dry and and Tom Rowse’s Australian roots and the country’s melting pot of cultures, including flavors from England, the Mediterranean and southeast Asia. The two culinary pals also own The Sentry, Daintree, Ghost Burger and the Hole in The Wall restaurant concepts, in addition to the Isla & Co brand with locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, as well as in Dallas, Atlanta and Fairfield, Conn. There are plans to open a second South Florida location of Isla & Co. in Miami Beach in 2023. 1401 Clare Ave., West Palm Beach; 323-3046992; Isla-Co.com
New River Cafe and Bakery, Fort Lauderdale
Her tantalizing red-andgreen velvet cake smeared in coquito cream cheese won Netflix’s “Sugar Rush Christmas,” and now Sabrina Courtemanche has opened her downtown Fort Lauderdale bakery in late January. Courtemanche, the executive pastry chef at Riverside Hotel, opened the shop in a retail space near the hotel, where she bakes confections such as snicker brownies, chocolate-chip sourdough loaves, cinnamon rolls and pumpkin tiramisu. 420 SE Sixth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; Facebook.com/NewRiverCafeBakery
Ramen Lab Eatery, West Boca Raton
Ramen Lab Eatery opened Jan. 30 at Boca Raton’s Mission Bay Plaza. But if you’re looking for something splashier, a grand opening event has been planned for 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 9, with Japanese drummers and lion dancers, aerialists, a 360 photo-booth, fire dancers and sketch artists from artNEST. Known for handmade ramen noodles, handwrapped dumplings, Asian tapas and donburi (rice bowl), the restaurant is part of the Lemongrass Hospitality label, which also owns Lemongrass Asian Bistro, The Sea Kitchen, Ganzo and Eat District — all in Palm Beach County. This new Ramen Lab Eatery in West Boca Raton measures 1,900 square feet and has seating for 50 indoors and 20 outdoors. 20449 State Road 7, No. A5, Boca Raton; 561-617-1903; ramenlabeatery.com
Azzurro Cucina Italiana, Fort Lauderdale
Call it an Italian shuffle: A month after longtime staple Kitchenetta closed its doors on North Federal Highway, this kitchen helmed by Michael Dubrovsky and Sicilian native Paolo Accarpio (ex-DeVito South Beach) has opened in its place. If the name sounds familiar, Azzurro spent 10 years in Sunny Isles Beach before relocating down the street inside Trump International Beach Resort. That hotel partnership dissolved within nine months and Azzurro decamped to Fort Lauderdale. The restaurant, which debuted Jan. 20, strictly specializes in Italian classics, including tableside bucatini cacio e pepe, fried calamari, veal Milanese and frutti di mare. 2850 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale; 954-5673333; Facebook.com/azzurrocucina or Instagram.com/ azzurrocucinaitaliana
Chickeatah’, Fort Lauderdale
This Turkish Halal restaurant registered to owner Valentina Akyol debuted on Jan. 22 in
Fort Lauderdale’s Middle River Terrace neighborhood. The corner shop specializes in round pizzas but also in “pide,” a boatshaped, thick-dough flatbread stuffed with kashar cheese, “sujuk” (dried beef sausage), chicken gyro, feta or seasonal vegetables. Other Mediterranean staples include grilled chicken wings, lentil soup, baba ghanoush, hummus and gyro wraps. 1100 NE Fourth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; 754-223-4139; search for “Chickeatah’ ” on Facebook.com
Closed
Mr. Chen’s Hunan Palace, Delray Beach
A favorite of retirees orbiting the Kings Point condo community, this reliable eatery serving Chinese-American staples permanently closed in late January after 35 years in the Palm Court Plaza medical-office complex on Linton Boulevard. Though multiple proprietors ran Mr. Chen’s over the decades, its most-recent owners, Dewei Liang and Lina Budiman, took over the restaurant in
2019, upgrading the dining room and introducing dim sum like shumai and shrimp-and-pork fun guo, until foot traffic slumped during the pandemic. Later this spring, the space will become a sister location for Florida chain 5th Element Indian Grill. 5130 Linton Blvd., Unit E1, Delray Beach; 561-498-4703
Holy Mackerel Small Batch Beers, Wilton Manors
The signs are down and the phone line is disconnected at this brewpub near Five Points Plaza that abruptly closed without fanfare in late January after nearly three years in Wilton Manors. Owner Frank Barecich told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the brewery, which closed to make way for a new condo development, plans to relocate this year, although no new lease has been signed. Holy Mackerel, which began its life in 2008 under brewer Bobby Gordash, opened its first taproom in 2017 in a Pompano Beach warehouse. Then it migrated in 2020 to Wilton Manors under new owner Frank Barecich, who bought the naming rights and recipes from Gordash. Despite the many stainless-steel tanks adorning this brewhouse, the (sometimes controversial) brewery did not brew beer on premises, instead outsourcing its suds to South Carolina’s Thomas Creek Brewery, which made Holy Mackerel recipes including Special Golden Ale, Panic Attack and Café Cubano. 1414 NE 26th St., Wilton Manors; HolyMackerelBeers.com
Broski Ciderworks, Pompano Beach
This steampunk-inspired cider house founded by brothers David and Daniel Verdugo served its final pints on Jan. 29, lasting about six years inside a quiet office park in Pompano Beach. Broski, which won multiple
U.S. Cider Open medals, blamed the decision to close on “many factors post-COVID” on social media. Despite the nondescript digs, Broski always touted a rainbow of whimsical flavors: horchata and hibiscus, coquito and butterscotch, banana fluffernutter and strawberry creamsicle, to say nothing of its mango and passionfruit staples. 1465 SW Sixth Court, Pompano Beach; BroskiCiderworks.com
Ovlo Eats, Plantation
Since 2019, Ovlo Eats — from owners Steve Stolberg and Josh Bernstein — had touted a “fast-fine” menu with made-fromscratch dishes served out of the kitchen within 10 minutes of ordering.
But on Jan. 2, Ovlo Eats suddenly posted online: “Thank you for the journey, Plantation. We appreciate you adopting Ovlo Eats into your community and are incredibly appreciative of the support over the years. While this isn’t how we were hoping to end things, we’re so happy to have had the opportunity to share our fresh, clean, and delicious eats with all of you.” 7626 Peters Road, Plantation; OvloEats.com
The Butcher Shop Beer Garden & Grill, West Palm Beach
This hybrid meat market and restaurant owned by father-son duo Igor and Fred Niznik has closed its doors after five years in downtown West Palm Beach. A sibling to the Wynwood-born restaurant (which closed in January 2022), Butcher Shop smoked, ground and cut their meats in-house and prepared their own pierogis and sausages. The popular eatery off Flagler Drive also served chicken, brisket, ribs, meatloaf and pork shoulder, and offered a beer garden where live music, cornhole tournaments and dog-friendly gatherings took place. 209 Sixth St., West Palm Beach; Facebook.com/butchershopwpb