Serendipity 3 on Lincoln Road, OTC in Brickell, Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza just off the MacArthur Causeway and the 17-year-old Romeo’s Cafe in Coral Gables are among the 20-plus restaurants that have closed in the last few weeks.
One source told the Miami Herald it’s been a “bloodbath” in the Miami-Dade County food-and-beverage scene.
“Well, you always hear ‘location, location, location,’” says Evan Benn, Miami Herald food editor. “And there are certainly a number of the closures that we’ve seen that have been the same spots... [where] every six months there seems to be something new there.”
Benn has been writing about the closures and says there are a number of reasons behind the trend.
“Everyone is fighting for the same diners, the same money. Some restaurateurs just get into unsustainable leases,” he says. “It’s not uncommon to hear of restaurants that need to pay $40,000 or more a month in rent to stay open. And unless you’re constantly busy all the time, that just doesn’t become something you can foreseeably do.”
Hear a longer version of our interview with Benn here:
He put together the following map showing some of the closed restaurants, which include the well reviewed Khong River House in Miami Beach and De Rodriguez, which had been open for almost five years and was, as Benn writes, the “flagship restaurant of... the godfather of nuevo Latino cuisine.”
