Is Lake Worth Beach the next restaurant hotspot?
If you’re looking for an up-and-coming mecca for muchies, you might want to check out Lake Worth Beach.
Over the past few months there has been a flurry of new and soon-to-come restaurants, including with chefs J.D. Eubanks (“Guy’s Grocery Games”) and Jeremy Hanlon (“Chopped,” “Beat Bobby Flay”).
The little oceanside town’s downtown and beach area joins other Palm Beach County cuisine enclaves on Delray Beach’s Atlantic Avenue, Boca Raton’s Mizner Park and Royal Palm Place, and West Palm Beach’s Rosemary Square and Clematis Street.
“I believe Lake Worth Beach is on its way to becoming a foodie paradise,” says Joan C. Oliva, executive director of the Lake Worth Beach Community Redevelopment Agency. “As more people move to the city, demand for local retail and restaurants is increasing. We are seeing seasoned restaurateurs and small businesses who are now not only seeing the uniqueness of the city, but also its potential.”
She said the city offered small grants to keep restaurants and bars going. “As we add new residents to the area, we anticipate more demand for different types of restaurants.”
Oliva adds that the city recently approved new units for restaurant and retail development in the downtown area, both on Dixie Highway and in West Village (just west of the railroad tracks between Dixie Highway and the roundabout where Lake and Lucerne Avenues meet).
Those projects will include apartments buildings with ground floor commercial spaces such as the Bohemian, Village Flats, Element, Deco Green and the historic Gulfstream Hotel. Already the art gallery/wine bar/event space mash-up Sugar Plum & The Grumbling Growler plans on moving into the West Village neighborhood.
“We think it’s going to be growing even more in the future,” says Omar Arrieta, who co-owns Los Panchos Tacos and Tequila Bar with business partner Gustavo Gabriel and chef J.D. Eubanks. “In the future...this will be very, very upscale, like Las Olas, Atlantic Avenue.”
Here’s a breakdown of what just opened (and what will open) in downtown Lake Worth Beach.
Viva La Playa
10 South Ocean Blvd., Lake Worth Beach. 561-247-7245 or VivaLaPlaya.com.
Opened in September.
Background: Viva La Playa is the new beachside eatery by restaurateurs Lee and Max Lipton and executive chef Jeremy Hanlon, the same team behind Benny’s on the Beach, which, like Viva, is in the Lake Worth Casino Building and Beach Complex.
“Yes, Viva La Playa has a Latin American influence in the restaurant, but the inspiration and flavors come from my own experiences in cooking as well as travel and study,” explains Hanlon. “I spent some time in the north of Spain, in the Basque region. I spent time in Japan and around Asia. I studied the South American influences in Peru...where I worked with these Basque chefs.”
Hanlon, who competed on the Food Network’s “Chopped” and “Beat Bobby Flay,” says, “These chefs lured me ... to travel to Mexico City, Argentina and Brazil and Colombia. I got a lot of my technique ... from those beacons like Mexico City and Lima. I take all of that and my own creativity and pursuit of amazing flavors and bring it to where we are in Lake Worth Beach.”
Extra tidbit: “We have this heirloom corn that we purchase from Mexico and we use it to create our own masa and tortillas,” Hanlon says. “We use it in a lot of our recipes. We take that mindset and we grow the menu from there.”
Fire & Ice
707 Lake Ave., Lake Worth. 561-469-1099 or Facebook.com/FireandIce561.
Opened in September.
Background: It was an opportunity that Henry Olmino just couldn’t resist. When Suri Tapas Bar closed after four years, the landlord needed a new tenant. “The deal was so good,” recalls Olmino. “The deal was tremendous. That’s why we opened up another restaurant.”
Olmino has been chef and owner of Marios Ocean Ave in Lantana since 2015 (after coming out of retirement for 13 years). His family started their South Florida restaurant reign with Mario The Baker, which opened in Sunrise in 1974. Later came restaurants in Coral Springs and Fort Lauderdale, namely Mario’s East on Las Olas Boulevard (which Olmino sold in 2002).
Now, with two restaurants in Palm Beach County, Olmino differentiates Fire & Ice by billing it as “more casual — the concept I did there is pizzas, subs and wings. Pizza places are good during the pandemic. Even during the pandemic shutdown in April, the pizza places did very well. Chinese restaurants did very well. Takeout places or if they were able to convert to a takeout restaurant, they did very well.”
Hence Lake Worth.
“I just feel that Lake Worth is an ... area that’s very congested with people,” Olmino adds. “The delivery is astronomical in that area. [Fire & Ice] is just a fun place to come to. No linens. Nothing to be stuffy about. Everything is scratch made."
Extra tidbit: “At the beginning we said the oven is going to be the fire,” Olmino explains. “The alcohol is going to be the ice. We run a very, very aggressive happy hour there.” There is a private room upstairs with another bar. “I’d like to turn that in the first speakeasy in Lake Worth,” Olmino says.
Roxie’s Place
15 N J St., Lake Worth. 561-508-6979 or Facebook.com/pages/category/Diner/Roxies-Place-105186504366463.
Opened in July.
Background: “I was a server,” says the diner’s owner and chef, Roxanne Anken. “I just thought it was time for me to run my own business. Good restaurants are hard to find to work in, where things are done correctly. I know what I like and what I didn’t like.”
So when her daughter spotted a potential space in Lake Worth, Anken knew it was right.
“I’m very happy with my location, this funky little town,” she says. “They are extremely happy I opened. There’s no diner. I just felt they needed a little diner here. I just had in my head [that] I like a family feel. I like diners where you walk in and everyone knows your name and everyone is your friend."
Much of the menu is scratch made, from the soups to the banana bread pudding, which she drizzles caramel on top. “It’s delicious,” Anken adds. “It’s basically diner food. It’s an old-fashioned kind of food. My special today was a Sloppy Joe, if that tells you anything.”
Extra tidbit: Roxie’s Place is open for breakfast and lunch, where the beef on weck sandwich is very popular and a specialty of the house. The weck is short for kummelweck, a type or roll similar to a Kaiser, but with caraway seeds and pretzel salt baked in and then you fill it with roast beef. “It’s a western New York thing,” Anken explains.
Los Panchos Tacos and Tequila Bar
717 Lake Ave, Lake Worth. 561-660-7474 or LosPanchosLakeWorth.com.
Opening Nov. 10.
Background: You may remember chef J.D. Eubanks from an armed forces themed episode of “Guy’s Grocery Games” on the Food Network. Eubanks, a former Marine, won the TV cooking competition, donating his prize money to the Wounded Warrior Project. Back then he was a big name on the Louisiana culinary scene (Antoine’s, National WWII Museum). Now he’s bringing those skills and mastery of a totally different cuisine — Mexican — to Los Panchos.
“First of all, coming here, you’re not basting everything in butter,” he explains. “Florida focuses more on a Mediterranean and Caribbean style cuisine.”
Eubanks says he learned about the kind of Mexican fare that Los Panchos will be offering while in the Navy. “I would save up my leave and travel to Mexico and cook in different restaurants. It was a few of us, all cooks, all Marines. One trip we were there for two months.”
He adds that his wife is from Mexico and that he has some Mexican heritage on his father’s side of the family. “So I had that in my blood already,” says Eubanks. “I was making mole when I was like 17.”
As for the dishes he thinks will be popular, “We love the braised meats and smoked meats. A lot of Mexican food has long cook times. We do a brisket [in enchiladas, burritos, tacos]...and braise it for 14 hours. We’re doing them very close to tradition. My executive sous chef, Jose Sanchez, he’s from the Yucatán part of Mexico and he says to me, ‘How do you know how to cook these things? Most white guys don’t understand these things.' "
Eubanks adds that Sanchez’s wife, Marvi Sandoval Rodriguez, will make all the desserts. “We’re keeping it in the family.”
“The Crispy Baja, [which are] mahi tacos, are going to be pretty good because they are made with this homemade beer batter. We marinate the mahi for two or three hours. And the chicken tinga...is one of the best tingas I’ve ever had.”
Extra tidbit: The owners of Los Panchos are Gustavo Gabriel and Omar Arriete. “There are lots of burger places, pizza places,” says Arrieta. “We wanted to do something different to target a younger crowd. It’s not only a restaurant. At night you can stay a little longer and have mojitos and other cocktails and enjoy the music and dance around a little bit.”
Dr. Spirits Co. and Doc Holliday’s BBQ Sports Grill
604 Lake Avenue, Lake Worth. Facebook.com/DrSpiritsCo or Facebook.com/DocHollidaysBBQ.
Opening Dr. Spirits Co. in February or March 2021, then Doc Holliday’s sometime after that.
Background: First up will be the distillery, Dr. Spirits, which is under construction now and will produce handcrafted vodka when the 3,000-square foot space is done.
“We really had the opportunity to build this anywhere we wanted,” says owner Daniel de Liege. “We met with [development representatives] from all over the state. When we looked at Lake Worth, where it is today, where they’re slated to be with things literally in the pipeline, it really looked like a spot where we could get in on the ground floor and get in on the growth of that city.”
As for Doc Holliday’s, de Liege’s vision is to own the barbecue game in Palm Beach County with the 5,000-square-foot restaurant. “It’s dismal,” he says. “You’ve got the chains and some insignificant mom and pop places. We’re doing the best of everything. That’s the real emphasis: Real barbecue from around the country, which Palm Beach County just does not have.”
Extra tidbit: Eclectic is the best way to describe de Liege’s background and the unlikely path that brought him to the bar and restaurant biz. He started out as a movie producer with an office on the Paramount Pictures lot under his own banner, Prelude Pictures (“Lost in Space,” “Black Dog,” “The Perfect Game”). In 2011 he left Tinseltown to get in the renewable energy game with some of the PhD’s from the University of Florida making cellulosic ethanol. “Spirits like your bourbon, gin, vodka — all liquors have a base of alcohol and alcohol is ethanol,” explains de Liege. “That same gallon of ethanol I could sell for $1.50 a gallon, but as vodka I could sell for vodka $350 a gallon.”
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