What’s coming to new Marina Village food hub at Fort Lauderdale’s Bahia Mar?
Right now it’s just a row of concrete structures, mere husks of what’s to come.
Being constructed on the Intracoastal Waterway across A1A from Fort Lauderdale beach, they could easily be mistaken for cabanas or boathouses in the making.
Nope. This is Marina Village, and those buildings will house eight fast-casual restaurants when the project debuts this winter as the first phase of Bahia Mar Fort Lauderdale Beach’s ambitious resort rollout plans.
There will also be entertainment among the kiosks, centered around a party boat with three bars. The Jungle Queen will moor its two boats on the southern tip alongside a sales center and ticket booth, all of this on 35,000 square feet of open-air space.
We know five of the restaurants coming to the $16 million enterprise, part of Bahia Mar’s billion-dollar makeover that includes a 256-luxury-room/suite resort with 60 condominiums, 350 residential units in four towers, a mega-yacht marina with 245 boat slips and 87,000 square feet of commercial space. The first phase with the hotel and two residential towers is expected to be completed in 2027.
Developer James Tate explains, “We were thinking about, you know, the hotel and how do we do more to keep our guests on the property instead of just having the prototypical restaurant at the hotel and then the bar and grill at the pool deck.”
That was in late 2015, with the first site plan completed in early 2016. Local activists complained about the deal being another land giveaway, but Fort Lauderdale commissioners eventually signed off on the endeavor this June.
“We realized we have a lot more than just hotel guests,” Tate recalls. “We have (an almost) 250-slip yacht marina at the Bahia Mar, of which we have a lot of full-time people that are living on the mega yachts from the captains to the crew … so between our hotel and the marina, we probably have 500,000 people a year that are really on-site.”
After doing market research and meeting with designers and architects, and taking into account the city-owned parking lot across the street with 600 spaces, Tate says the conversation expanded to what would be good for the city — something beyond, say, a collection of food trucks.
“What can we do for the area that promotes the marina, promotes the waterfront, promotes a lifestyle that people from Fort Lauderdale appreciate,” Tate recalls asking. “And we decided let’s come up with a quality food- and beverage-themed outdoor venue which will have great food products … incredible entertainment and beautiful vistas of the marina and a cool prevailing breeze from the ocean. We should really do something phenomenal that’s going to stand on its own even though it’s part of a much larger development.”
Bahia Mar has also been a home base for the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show since 1976, and Tate said they wanted to keep a laid-back nautical theme.
“We want to handpick every chef or every tenant that’s going to be at this Marina Village so that we have the great product mix, great tenant mix, great food-genres mix that complement each other, don’t detract from one to another.”
Enter Native Realty, where founder and CEO Jaime Sturgis and COO Kaley Tuning helmed the curation of food and beverage tenants that will make up Marina Village. Native Realty helped turn South Florida neighborhoods Flagler Village and Progresso into buzzy enclaves and is working on doing the same for Fort Lauderdale’s Sistrunk corridor and 13th Street (aka Studio City).
“We both were born and raised (in Fort Lauderdale) and it’s near and dear to our hearts, the beach in particular,” Sturgis says. “It’s always been … these national chains that are really geared towards tourists, which obviously is important to the economy, but we think that you can get the best of both worlds. You can have quality food offerings with local and regional operators or national operators for that matter, but that will also appeal to the residents who live here, you know, instead of just cheap beers and wings.”
Tuning says, “We’ve done dozens and dozens of taste tests just to make sure that we’re bringing in the right people.
“I know a lot of people, myself included, that are born and raised here and don’t frequent the beach quite often. And mostly it is because of the tenant mix that’s there,” she adds. “To Jaime’s point, I can go get wings somewhere else without having to deal with the traffic.”
They also say that Fort Lauderdale is geographically ideal for getting a feel for the South Florida market.
“People recognize that Lauderdale is a phenomenal location in the center of the tricounty — to be able to service both markets, especially for (restaurants) that are coming in from out of town,” Sturgis explains. “It’s a great place to plant the flag … it’s a great centralized location to start there.”
THE RESTAURANTS
Yip (yipmiami.com)
Culinary direction: Yip offers hot steamed dumplings, handcrafted bao buns, fresh boba teas and wok-inspired dishes. There are already five other South Florida locations.
Why Marina Village?: “Yip is an Asian fast-casual concept we founded in 2017,” says founder Filbert Ip. “We had been looking to serve the city of Fort Lauderdale and finally found the right space here at Marina Village.”
Anything unique about this location of your brand?: “Situated right across from Las Olas beach, we will emphasize our refreshing iced boba tea drinks and inaugurate our new Summer Tea menu. These cooled beverages will include carefully picked fruits like kiwi, strawberry, dragon fruit and mango.”
Quore Gelato (quoregelato.com)
Culinary direction: “Quore Gelato offers a truly unique and delightful experience by blending adults’ favorite treats, gelato and liquor,” says operations manager Daniel Ianotti. There are three other South Florida locations.
Why Marina Village?: “What attracted us the most to this location is that it is a gastronomic walk, a place where the finest representatives of each food group and type come together.”
Anything unique about this location of your brand?: “Yes, this location will have a unique touch. Adapting to a beachy and tropical ambience excites us.”
Blue Steel Pizza Co. (bluesteelpizzaftl.com)
Culinary direction: “Blue Steel Pizza Co. serves Detroit-style pizza, which is a fairly unique style to the South Florida area,” says co-owner Brian Costello, who opened Blue Steel Pizza on Commercial Boulevard in early 2022. “It is baked in a blue-steel pan (hence our name) that originated in Detroit … using leftover automobile ‘parts’ pans in Motor City. Some of our other signature items include Crab Fries (sidewinder fries with blue crab, butter, kimchi, yuzu, aioli, scallion, togarashi), Fried Chicken Bao Buns, Coca-Cola BBQ Wings and a Coney Island Dog.”
Why Marina Village?: “As soon as we learned about the Marina Village project development, we were excited by the opportunity. It’s obviously prime real estate serving both the beach and marina traffic. There’s really nothing like it in Fort Lauderdale currently.”
Anything unique about this location of your brand?: “Our menu will definitely be more pizza-forward than our other locations, and we will not be serving our signature cocktails. We intend to have a nice offering of some great beer that comes out of the Detroit or Michigan area.”
Fresh Garden Bowls (freshgardenbowls.com)
Culinary direction: With a location in Miami Beach, Fresh Garden Bowls offers bowls, of course, but also salads and wraps, including gluten-free options and fresh fruit smoothies.
Why Marina Village: “Marina Village is one of the most progressive projects in a most attractive place close to the beach,” says executive general manager Diana Tesserova.
Anything unique about this location of your brand?: “Our special dessert sponge will be launched with the new place opening. Also in this new operation, we (will) start to offer coffee options.”
Burgers & Shakes (burgers-and-shakes.com)
Culinary direction: “We make a huge effort to keep the best quality at every location, including our Angus beef patties and hot dogs, wild mahi mahi and all-natural, hormone-free chicken,” says co-owner George Iglesias. There are locations in Hollywood and Miami Beach.
Why Marina Village?: “We’ve been looking for a Fort Lauderdale location for a while. And after we got in contact with this venue concept, we thought it was a perfect place.”
Anything unique about this location of your brand?: “We will be offering at Burgers & Shakes Marina the same quality of products at the same price and the same vibe we bring with every location. Our concept will stay the same.”
CULLING THE CULINARY
These five eateries were whittled down by Native Realty with some simple boxes to check
“You don’t want something too heavy,” explains Tuning. “You’re on the beach. You want light. You want … handhelds, things that are also going to cover breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
In addition to making sure there wasn’t any culinary crossover, they also took a deeper dive into the restaurants.
“We’d even get a little bit more granular, going into like social media,” says Sturgis. “What’s their outreach? What’s their pull? How can they attract people to the site? Even as granular as their product presentation. Is it biodegradable? Is it reusable? How much trash and that sort of thing is going to be created by the use? Some are a lot more trash-intensive than others, right? And how would that then affect waterways and the beach, just the overall area. So you’re trying to be hyper-mindful from a macro perspective of how that’s gonna fit into the environment on the beach that we all love and cherish and want to keep clean.”
THE PARTY BOAT
The party boat will be decked out to accommodate entertainment as well as a cocktail service, moored in the middle of the kiosks.
The boat will have three bars, one on the main deck and two on an upper deck on either side of the DJ booth. The music from the vessel and other live entertainment will be heard throughout Marina Village, which is designed by Miami-based Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design.
“He designed something that is really fun. It’s outside, it’s nautical, it’s different, it’s unique,” says Tate. “We’ve converted the old Fisher Island Ferry into a very cool venue so that it will be the place where people can come and sit and enjoy a drink, but also with a QR code order from any of the eight restaurants.”
Tate believes that the vessel will have two distinct vibes.
“During the day, it’s going to be one thing for families and people to enjoy this area as one type of experience, and then at nighttime it’s going to be great music, great drinks. You know maybe some of the younger crowd will come to pregame there before they go out. Or people will come off their yachts or head home from the beach and just stop by and have something to eat for dinner or drink. Then other people just come there after dinner and have an after-dinner drink and sit outside and talk with their friends or, you know, do whatever.”
KEEPING IT USER-FRIENDLY
There are floating docks around Marina Village as well as two permanent docks to handle people who come to the promenade on a skiff or yacht.
In addition to the 600 parking spaces in lots along State Road A1A, there are 1,100 parking spaces at the property (with over 400 more approved for the major upgrade) and a valet service.
“We have a Lyft drop-off and Uber drop-off and a bus drop-off on the east side, so we made this very user-friendly,” Tate says. “Anybody can come … with their own vehicle, by bicycle, by boat or by shared vehicle riding with a Lyft or Uber.”
He adds, “The idea was how do we open the beach back to all of Fort Lauderdale. It’s beautiful and it belongs to everybody. And we want people from the western part of Fort Lauderdale and downtown Fort Lauderdale and the northern part of Fort Lauderdale to come back and recognize that one of our greatest resources is right here.”
The address will be 801 Seabreeze Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. For more information, go to marinavillageftl.com.
