Vikram Thadani first came to Miami from Chile on vacation when he was 17, and he swore right then that someday he’d open a restaurant here. That was in 2002, and after opening four restaurants back home, he decided in 2021 he’d attempt to pull off his dream.
Thadani settled on a space in Wynwood. He figured it would take six months to open. “Everyone laughed when I told them that,” he says.
Eighteen months later, after endless red tape and reams of paperwork thrown at him by the City of Miami, he finally opened his Indian restaurant, Rishtedar, in February. He can’t even calculate how many tens of thousands of dollars the delays cost him.
“That’s why I’m living in my car at Home Depot,” he says with a laugh. “Just kidding, just kidding.”
Thadani’s experience is similar to stories I’ve heard over and over from chefs and restaurant owners in my 20 years covering the industry in South Florida. Miami’s inefficient and often beguiling bureaucracy can lead to months—sometimes years—of delays in even a simple restaurant opening, costing operators sometimes upwards of six figures.
The reasons for the delays in Miami are often baffling, owners say. In Thadani’s case, one problem arose when the Post Office changed his restaurant’s mailing address. Suddenly, inspectors stopped showing up, leading to a two-week pause in the process—and adding to months of delays.
Some might shrug this off as a problem suffered only by well-off restaurateurs. But it can also hurt workers who get stuck in paycheck limbo and lead to less revenue for the city in both the taxes generated by new restaurants and the money they add to the economy. For chefs, who often toil in 18-hour-a-day jobs in broiling kitchens for meager wages, it can mean forever working for someone else rather than someday opening their dream restaurant.
Delays plague even the most seasoned Miami restaurateurs
Chefs who do take the plunge often seek advice from Allen Susser, one of Miami’s most experienced chefs and now a restaurant consultant. It’s hard to open a restaurant anywhere, Susser will tell them, but “Miami absolutely has its own set of challenges.” Beyond the actual costs of construction, chefs must plan to have tens of thousands of dollars set aside to account for delays.
“You’re at the mercy of the inspectors and the people downtown going through the plans," Allen says. "And you have to walk it from A to B to C to D—there’s nobody who takes a set of plans and walks it through the system.”
Of course, experienced restaurant owners in Miami are better equipped, says Michael Beltran, whose expanding local empire includes Brasserie Laurel and the Michelin-starred Ariete. Still, it took a full two years for him to open Chug’s, his Cuban-American diner in Coconut Grove. Thankfully, he was financially prepared for that possibility.
Beltran has learned not to expect his chef’s work ethic from the outside players required to push a new restaurant through to opening. “At the end of the day, if someone doesn’t show up for work, I guess we just have to do it tomorrow.”
It also took restaurateur Alvaro Perez Miranda a solid two years to open his Coconut Grove sushi spot Midorie, costing him into the six figures. “There are so many inspections that you can have, and you don’t get the information from the city,” he says. His soon-to-come restaurant Ogawa has met similar red tape setbacks.
It’s like Jay-Z’s famous line: Grand openin’, grand closin’.
Like many restaurateurs, Miranda hired a professional “expediter” to run paperwork to various city, county and state departments that regulate restaurants. Those departments don’t communicate with each other, leading to confusing and often contradictory messaging for those attempting to navigate the system.
You might not find out what’s required for a ventilation system, for example, until an inspector fails you for what’s been already installed, leading to costly changes. “I’ve been waiting two weeks right now for them to show up,” says Perez Miranda. “When they get here, maybe they’ll say, ‘Alvaro, you put this breaker a little bit too much to the left.’” That’s another two weeks before you can schedule another inspection and do it all again, he says.
Seemingly endless roadblocks put up by the city are a common complaint from chefs and restaurant owners in Miami, says Geoff Luebkemanna, Senior Vice President of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, a statewide trade group that represents the industry.
All cities have rules and regulations governing the opening of restaurants that are meant to keep customers safe, like inspections of grease traps and hand-washing stations. But the process is simply harder in Miami, Luebkemanna says. “There seem to be more steps involved in the local market—in other words, more red tape, in that market than elsewhere.”
Staffing woes are the tip of the iceberg
And it’s not just red tape: Miami also suffers from a shortage of construction workers, subcontractors and experienced staff, says Lost Boy & Co. co-founder Chris Hudnall, who’s overseen the openings of Lost Boy Dry Goods, Tropezón, Joliet, Mayfair Grill, Fox’s Lounge and a new concept coming soon.
It’s near-impossible to predict setbacks caused by finding tradespeople and the city’s red tape, which means owners often start ramping up for an opening only for it to be pushed back again and again. Hudnall has often hired and trained an entire staff, front and back of the house, only to receive the last-second blow that, actually, it’ll be a month or more before the place can open.
In this case, owners are faced with a tough choice: let everyone go and start from scratch weeks or months later, or keep paying the staff to do nothing. “Going into an opening without that accounted for, it’s extremely stressful,” Hudnall says. Which of the Lost Boy restaurants did this happen to? “Every single one…It’s like Jay-Z’s famous line: Grand openin’, grand closin’.”
Asked for a response to owners’ complaints of excessive delays, City of Miami spokesperson Kenia Fallat replied with an email that read, in part: “We have a comprehensive guide on how to open a business in the city on our website.” When pushed for additional comments, Fallat did not respond to further emails.
All of the red tape and construction nightmares have not dissuaded restaurateurs from coming to Miami, especially since Covid-19. But Thadani has a warning, half-jokingly, for those who go for it: “I would say: Sell your house, sell everything you have, and prepare for this adventure.”