Oceanaire Seafood Room, a premium restaurant in Mary Brickell Village that has drawn solid reviews, has been purchased by a large national chain, the Nation’s Restaurant News reports. Landry’s, which owns Rainforest Cafe and Chart House among other restaurants, paid $6.6 million and assumed $17 million in debt. Oceanaire filed for…
Richard Kirshen, a Miami Beach business owner who does a blues show on Talk City, was having breakfast with his eight-year-old granddaughter, Shelby, at the GreenStreet Cafe in Coconut Grove recently.”Somebody left a New Times on the table,” Kirshen recalls. “She picked it up, started paging through, and then said:…
Food & Wine Editor Dana Cowin responded to my post from last week about the magazine’s lack of top new chefs who are either Hispanic or from Miami. She — and spokeswoman Lori Lefevre — make some good points. For instance, they note the mag is a top sponsor of…
This year’s winners for Food & Wine magazine’s best new chefs are out and the choices are an outrage. Not only did Miami get screwed again, but the absence of Hispanics in this respected mag’s list is apparent and ugly.The issue names ten new chefs from across the country as…
Last year, somebody killed and ate Ivonne Rodriguez’s quarter horse, Geronimo. If that somebody tries the same thing next year, he will likely spend at least a year in jail and pay a $3,500 fine. The Florida House of Representatives is poised to pass a bill making it a felony…
This week’s Newsweek — which should probably be titled “Suck-up-week” — includes a front page pic of the iPad and a back page ad for the Amazon Kindle. The main article is a generally positive piece about the iPad and the geeks who love it…
While the rest of the country — or at least California, Colorado, and a few others — virtually legalizes pot, Florida is going retro.Bills making their way through the Florida House and Senate would impose a 25 percent tax on pipes with carburetors. Worse, it argues that these pipes couldn’t be…
Miami-Dade Public Schools administrators knew old buildings threatened students but did almost nothing
Way too much attention these days is heaped upon paying teachers. Look deeply into the Miami-Dade County Public Schools budget and you’ll see that a potentially more disastrous problem lies in the condition of the buildings where our kids study.Later today, on our website and in this week’s print edition,…
Nine companies have joined the proposed class action lawsuit against Yelp, the San Francisco-based Internet giant, attorneys in Miami and California announced this morning. The new plaintiffs are located everywhere from Tujunga, California to Washington, D.C. They include businesses ranging from a sofa outlet to a bakery to the heart…
If you are Latin and have a pulse, you are either going to the Calle Ocho Festival today or know someone who is. Well, at the end of what promises to be a crowded and loud day, stop at Las Tapas de Rosa. This little gem in a strip mall…
Florida legislators, who recently started meeting in Tallahassee, are considering a plan to force restaurant chains to list the nutritional value of their food on menus. The plan, by State Senator Steve Wise, a Jacksonville Republican, would require chains with more than 20 locations to provide consumers with vitamins and…
They used to say that you could never find a grocery store on South Beach right? Wrong.Fresh Market plans a $7 million, 28,000 foot store primarily meant for walk-ins on West Avenue and 18th Street, Globe Street reported this morning. . The Herald has complained about a cost of $15…
Listen up taxpayers! Miami-Dade School administrators have put our kids at risk. No, not of failing, but of their school toppling on their heads. We’re talking little kids. Six year olds.How else to explain the sudden closing of North Miami Middle School and moving of kids from the North Dade…
Everybody’s whining about the lack of tomatoes these days. The winter freeze down our way messed up the supply, so there just aren’t many. DiMare farms, the biggest producer, is sending out just 20 percent of the usual haul. Subway, my favorite lunch joint, posted a sign yesterday that only…
The despicable Communist Party newspaper in Havana, Granma, yesterday posted an article (here in English) on its homepage about this week’s Posada Carrriles column that I wrote. They seem to like me. It’s rather annoying.One difference between the English and Spanish. While the English version just reports what I said…
En un club de Westchester, un hombre de 82 años habla con un grupo de amigos. No hay mucha luz, pero se notan sus ojos azules, cejas grises, y panza grande. Habla con amigos y a veces sonríe. Parece un típico viejo – con una excepción: sus brazos, pecho, y…
The proposed class-action lawsuit against Yelp we described earlier today is gonna be ugly.The guy who’s going to make it that way is Jared Beck, a Harvard grad who plans on being the bulldog here. The Miami lawyer — who also practices in California, where the suit was filed –…
Cuban killer Luis Posada Carriles goes on trial
Volleyball academy in Miami Beach needs a better place to play
So Dan Paul was a little crazy. And the stories of his personal escapades — sexual and otherwise — were legendary in this town.But Paul made modern Miami by writing the county charter in 1957. He was an eccentric genius who, despite earning scads of money, had a wisecrack for…
Roxana Morales leaps to return a spiked volleyball on the dirty sand court near the ancient band shell on Collins Avenue at 73rd Street. A generator that sputters in the background powers dim lights, so she can barely see. She misses.Even this jury-rigged system won’t last long. The generator is…
