The longtime South Beach sidewalk café and bar — identified for serving to to revitalize the world within the Eighties — formally reopened this week in its unique location on the Tony Hotel South Beach after being closed for simply over two years.
According to Jamil Dib, founder, and co-owner of Vida & Estilo — the restaurant group that now owns and operates News Cafe in addition to Miami ideas Barsecco, Havana 1957, Cafe Americano, Paperfish, Marabú, and Oh Mexico — the purpose was to breathe new life into the institution whereas preserving the important thing components that made it a Miami Beach mainstay.
“We had the dignity of restoring the restaurant, and subsequently a duty to its legacy, which we’re assured the brand new idea pays homage to,” says Dib. “This venture is about Miami Beach and Ocean Drive, and a part of our mission is to supply locations that create and foster neighborhood, simply as News Cafe did all these years.”
The brainchild of restaurateur Mark Soyka, News Cafe opened in 1988 after relocating to South Florida from New York with good friend and actual property developer Tony Goldman, founding father of Goldman Properties.
Located on the nook of Eighth Street and Ocean Drive, it was one of many solely eating places within the Art Deco district on the time. The restaurant was a part of a portfolio of Art Deco lodges and properties Goldman redeveloped to draw companies to the neighborhood, a motion that helped to construct the Ocean Drive we all know immediately.
For almost three many years, the 350-seat restaurant was a go-to vacation spot for locals and vacationers, together with Gianni Versace, the Miami Beach resident who visited the restaurant each day.
Open 24 hours, it was identified to serve as much as 5 thousand patrons a day earlier than it abruptly closed in January 2021 following the COVID-19 pandemic. The property shuttered for 18 months earlier than present process an intensive overhaul of the resort rooms and rooftop pool.
In March 2022, Miamians rejoiced when information broke that News Cafe would reopen in the identical house on the bottom flooring of the newly renamed Tony Hotel South Beach.
To convey the institution into its newest incarnation, Dib stated it was essential to honor the essence of Soyka and Goldman’s unique imaginative and prescient.
Although the beloved South Beach institution now boasts an elevated design and revamped Mediterranean-American menu, longtime clients will nonetheless have the ability to discover a number of acquainted components, Dib tells New Times.
“You’re going to really feel such as you’re in New York — that ambiance Soyka and Goldman initially envisioned — and you are going to really feel prefer it’s nonetheless News Cafe, however with a couple of tweaks,” Dib says.
Take the stain on the wall, a vestige of water injury from Hurricane Andrew, a poignant second the brand new proprietor determined to depart untouched.
There’s additionally a bowl of tomatoes on the restaurant entrance, impressed by an previous {photograph}. Those who visited the café throughout its early years would possibly bear in mind an identical one stuffed with the previous house owners’ favourite selection, stated to be displayed each day.
Diners may even sit at marble tables beneath the acquainted inexperienced awning that shaded sidewalk-dining patrons for the reason that ’80s. The bar seems to be simply because it did for the previous few many years, now with fancy purple barstools.
And, after all, the namesake newsstand — immediately dubbed the “Fashion Corner” — populated with News Cafe-branded souvenirs and the acquainted number of native, nationwide, and worldwide newspapers and magazines meant to be bought by diners to learn over a cup of espresso or a meal.
News Cafe has a couple of upgrades, most notably the QR-coded wall décor that tells the story of News Cafe and Miami Beach via the many years by way of classic photos from the restaurant’s inception to the current day, together with framed portraits of ’90s icons who frequented the institution.
And relating to meals, anticipate longtime favorites with quite a lot of fashionable gadgets, provides Dib, who researched to decide the restaurant’s best-sellers.
With the purpose to as soon as once more open 24 hours a day, News Cafe will open from 8 a.m. to midnight each day, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
A nod to the unique menu will supply dishes conceived by chef Henry Hané, founding father of Brickell’s B Bistro, who remembers eating on the restaurant together with his household each Friday rising up.
That means you could find his tackle the unique salmon omelet, Tony’s tomato soup, tuna soften, an Aegean-Mediterranean plate, and eggs Benedict whereas new additions convey a contemporary contact, from the piña colada pancakes with grilled pineapple and coconut syrup to a burger topped with a purple wine demi sauce, smoked gouda, and caramelized onions.
An in depth beverage menu nonetheless provides shaken and frozen drinks, classics like piña coladas and daiquiris, alongside all-new cocktails, zero-proof libations, and inventive coffee-based drinks.
The better part: many will probably be served within the previous souvenir-style Hurricane glass sourced from the restaurant’s unique producer, permitting company to take residence a spirited memento of each the previous and “new” News Cafe.
“This venture wasn’t simply to convey again a chunk of historical past,” sums up Dib. “We really feel like it should even be a recreation changer, the sign that sends a message that Ocean Drive generally is a cool place to hang around once more. We have a couple of extra surprises deliberate for the world, and it is our purpose to create what we consider as a brand new American Riviera.”
News Cafe. 800 Ocean Dr., Miami Beach; 786-644-6061; 8 a.m. to midnight each day; newscafesouthbeach.com.