Restaurant whiplash: Why so many South Florida eateries are closing all at once

Standing in his shuttered New Orleans-themed pub in Boca Raton on a recent Sunday, tables and chairs piled up against the wall, Philipp Hawkins says he tried everything to keep Phil’s Place alive.

Change the name and cuisine? Check. Apply for pandemic loans? Check, again. Add live blues, a legit Louisiana chef, a comedy night and a college drinking promotion? Been there, done that.

Nonetheless, on June 18 — after having sold just $220 worth of food two days prior, on Father’s Day — Hawkins took to social media to share what, in recent months, has become a common ritual for closing restaurants: the online goodbye.

“I just wanted to officially announce that I have to close the doors,” he said in a video posted on the Phil’s Place Facebook page. “Can’t afford the place anymore, so sorry, that’s just the God’s honest truth.”

From the street corner to social media, South Florida is reeling from a rash of restaurant closings that have toppled legacy mom-and-pops and established chains alike. Every day, it seems, diners are whiplashed by yet another “For Lease” sign or farewell Facebook post. They take photos of papered-over places or screenshot announcements on their phones and share them online, prompting expressions in comments sections of shocked grief (“heartbroken”; “this one sucks”) and I-told-you-so anger (“This is happening everywhere”).

So what explains the apparent bust cycle hitting Broward and Palm Beach counties lately? It depends on whom you ask, with arguments about the state of our restaurant industry swinging widely.

Landlords and leasing agents say business is booming, not flagging, arguing the restaurants that flopped had weak concepts from the start. Hospitality experts say such churn is normal in the inflationary economy. And restaurant owners place blame on higher rents, food and labor costs, and greedy landlords.

No matter the explanation, the personal pain of a broken restaurant dream can be brutal.

“This is what put me out of business,” Hawkins posted on the Sun Sentinel-run “Let’s Eat, South Florida” Facebook group. “My cost of goods went up by 60%. My electric bill went from … $1,300 a month to $2,500 a month. The inflation rate is out of control and yes, corporate America will take advantage.”

On top of that, customer traffic seesawed — even after he transformed his pricey caviar bistro, known as Fries to Caviar, into a more casual Cajun bar, Hawkins said in a follow-up interview. By June, visits had slowed to a crawl.

“If you don’t pay [the bills], you get evicted. … And if you can’t make that back in customer sales, and still have to buy alcohol and pay employees, you’re dead in the water,” he added.

The final dagger

As with Phil’s Place, some local restaurants found themselves squeezed out by surging inflation, wages and food costs once the pandemic subsided, said Fort Lauderdale restaurateur Tim Petrillo, whose hospitality group runs 12 bars, restaurants and clubs in Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

These pressures, paired with landlords raising rent, may be the “final dagger for some of these restaurants,” he said. “It’s a rebalancing … Restaurants couldn’t sustain that, and that’s why the transitions are happening now.”

Related Articles

• Restaurants, Food and Drink | Las Olas wipeout? Six Fort Lauderdale eateries shut down on ritzy restaurant row
• Restaurants, Food and Drink | Here are nine Tijuana Flats closed in South Florida as Chapter 11 filing loomed
• Restaurants, Food and Drink | Fort Lauderdale restaurant Val+tino permanently closes — but owners vow new eatery in downtown spot

Industry research appears to bolster Petrillo’s thinking. About 98% of restaurant owners think surging labor costs are causing problems, while 97% blame higher food costs, the National Restaurant Association said in its 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry report in February .

However, federal data suggests that inflation can hardly be blamed for causing sluggish foot traffic at failing restaurants. Demand for “food away from home” — which includes dine-in and takeout food — actually increased by 4.1% from June 2023 to June 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index .

“The demand is still there despite the inflationary pressures of last year,” said John Noble Masi, a chef and professor at Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality. “Now that there’s no more pandemic relief, and the rents have gone up again, restaurants once again must adapt to survive. Even Cheesecake Factory is serving less of their encyclopedia of a menu.”

Such cost pressures are nothing new, he said, but it still hurts when legacy restaurants suddenly perish.

“When you see longer-lasting restaurants close, it’s heartbreaking,” Masi said. “It’s a tough business.”

The 8 – year-old Odd Breed Wild Ales , a prize-winning Pompano Beach brewery serving barrel-aged craft beer, is expected to pour its last pint on July 31, tapped out by a combination of spiking rent, poor foot traffic and “crime and vagrancy” in the mostly vacant Old Town district, owner Matt Manthe announced last week on Facebook . (Two more breweries, Prison Pals in Oakland Park and Wynwood Brewing Co. in Miami, have also shut within the past four months for similar reasons.)

“Paying premium retail rental rates while selling most of our beer out of state and overseas just isn’t sustainable,” Manthe wrote. “Increased operating costs, coupled with a changing beer climate have made things increasingly difficult for a brewery that focuses exclusively on mixed culture beer aged in barrels.”

Lizette Restrepo, co-owner of Italian restaurant La Capricciosa in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, which closed May 31, said rent problems bedevil even prosperous restaurants. Failure is “personal and circumstantial,” she added, and defies any one cause.

In her case, rather than accept a higher rent from her landlord, Restrepo picked a closing date for her restaurant, which was “very successful,” and now plans to reopen this fall somewhere else in Broward.

“We didn’t want to make another ‘With heavy hearts, we’re closing’ post on Facebook,” she said. “It’s not right to keep it a secret from customers until the last second, so we announced we’re closing two months early. Let the shock wear off so they can follow us to our next location.”

Charlie Ladd, a Fort Lauderdale landlord and developer who’s credited with rejuvenating Flagler Village with sleek high-rises, admits commercial rents in the Fort Lauderdale nabe have grown 20% since 2019. He said new restaurants pay $40 to $70 per square foot for ground-floor spaces, but disputes the idea that the rising cost of rent can make or break a restaurant.

“Rent’s not a determinant of whether you’re going to have a hit,” said Ladd. “If you’re going into high-rent spaces, you need to catch the trends, gain a following and do big volume.”

Why chains are failing

It isn’t only mom-and-pops that meet their demise at head-spinning rates. Think of Red Lobster , the Orlando-based seafood franchise that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. Or consider Tex-Mex chain Tijuana Flats , which shut nine South Florida taquerias. Bru’s Room Sports Grill sold every location across South Florida save one independently owned location in Pompano Beach. One corporate-owned Hooters in West Palm Beach went belly up in late June, part of 40 “underperforming stores” nationwide that permanently shut, a Hooters spokesperson told the Sun Sentinel.

Ladd, who also owns multiple buildings on the eastern stretch of Las Olas Boulevard, said South Florida has gotten “too sophisticated” for casual chains that aren’t “trendy enough.” He pointed to Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar, a Pennsylvania-based modern Cuban chain that closed in late May after three years on Las Olas .

“We’re already in an area with a huge Cuban population,” Ladd says. “Would you go to Padrino’s where you get the real stuff or some place from Philadelphia? We’re too niche for the Red Lobsters of the world. That’s what’s killing off these super-casual places.

“Only really good restaurants have the power to change whole neighborhoods.”