At the Acqualina Resort & Spa in Sunny Isles Beach, find challah bread, grape juice bottles, and Zak the Baker chocolate babka inside a glass display case. This past April, the resort opened Kosher-to-Go, a modern kosher marketplace.
"Many people asked the hotel if we could consider opening a place so they could enjoy kosher food year-round," Acqualina CEO Deborah Yager Fleming says. "But you definitely don't need to be kosher to enjoy it."
Through a partnership with Aroma Catering — a glatt kosher market approved by the Orthodox Rabbinical Board — the small space is stocked with a medley of kosher-friendly eats, including freshly packed roast beef, tuna, or turkey sandwiches, greek or quinoa salads, challah, and rotating gelato flavors. The marketplace offers kosher wine too, along with grape juice and soft drinks.
Kosher-to-Go also carries Zak the Baker chocolate babka — a spongy, brioche-like yeast cake from Central and Eastern Europe — and banana bread, both delivered daily from Zak Stern's popular Wynwood bakery to the hotel. Besides South Florida Whole Foods Markets and the bakery itself, the babka is not available anywhere else.
The marketplace restocks its offerings daily, ensuring everything from salads and sandwiches to challah and babka are as fresh as possible. Even though the market is located in the lobby of the hotel, residents and other nonguests are welcome as well.
Kosher-to-Go is open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.