Relocated: Double Roads Tavern and other favorite restaurants find life after closing
The bad news: Your go-to neighborhood restaurant has closed. The good news: It’s reopening nearby. Such is the bright side of some pandemic-time closings in Palm Beach County, where various restaurants have found there can be new life many months later.
Take Double Roads Tavern, the Jupiter bar loved for its live music and flame-broiled burgers until it closed last year. It’s planning a comeback this summer, says owner Vince Flora, the blues and rock musician who opened the original bar in a small, U.S. 1 strip mall in 2014 as a haven for local musicians seeking a good jam.
Flora, who expects to open in July or August, plans a more spacious Double Roads with a focus on barbecue and creative pizza. (And, yes, those flame-broiled burgers.)
When he closed the original place in April 2021, Flora cited pandemic-related issues, parking woes and an “anti-live music sentiment” at Town Hall. He says Double Roads’ new, much larger and better designed space – which sits just steps away in the Jupiter Square shopping plaza on Indiantown Road and U.S. 1 – will eliminate previous concerns about parking and noise.
The new space, formerly home to a longstanding Outback Steakhouse, will have a “world-class sound system” that evenly disperses the sound throughout the space at a lower volume, instead of simply blasting it in one area, says Flora.
“It’s three times the size of the other space. It’s very cool. Amazing layout. I was able to redesign it using all the things I’ve learned in the past about making a venue work,” says Flora, a newly certified general contractor who is leading the renovation project.
The space is not all that will be new about Double Roads – the menu will get a revamp as well. Flora has hired a local pitmaster, chef Beau Grant (formerly of Food Shack), to fire up the bar’s new barbecue menu.
“I just love barbecue and the blues. I’ve always thought that barbecue and bands and booze went together really well,” says Flora, a longtime musician and frontman with the blues, rock and R&B band Big Vince and the Phat Cats.
So Double Roads fans can expect music-and-cue nights, like Flora’s planned “Brisket, Blues and Brews” Thursday night specials.
“The brisket would be a Thursday night and only Thursday night thing. We want to make sure the quality is perfect, so good we’ll run out. We want to run out,” he says.
‘Pizza-cue’ plans
The barbecued meats will play a starring role in Double Roads’ upcoming pizza lineup, in pies like brisket pizza with caramelized onions and Brie and pulled pork pizza with pineapple, he says.
“We’re doing pizza-cue. Pretty much, we’re putting a pizzeria inside of our restaurant. You can just walk up to the counter and order a slice,” says Flora.
He’s added a private dining room and “upscale craft cocktail lounge” to the mix.
“You can become a member of this lounge, like buying a box seat for the show. We’ll be featuring craft cocktail tastings and bourbon evenings there,” Flora says of the space that accommodates about 60.
There’s also a large al fresco dining area as well as an outdoor area for smoking cigars, he says. Both areas are covered.
But fear not, longtime Double Roads fans. Your go-to tavern is not about to get all swanky on you. The folksy spirit that earned the bar its loyal fans will still be there, says Flora.
“We’re not a fancy place,” he says. “We’re still more like a fun, rustic place.”
Other relocated restaurants
Stresa Italian Restaurant
This old-school Italian restaurant operated on Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach for nearly 25 years before closing during the first state-mandated COVID shutdown in March 2020.
A landlord dispute prompted owner/chef Claudio Trevisan to seek another location last year. In November 2021, he reopened Stresa about a mile away in a Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard plaza in the space where Thai restaurant Bangkok O-Cha had operated for decades.
Once an off-radar power lunch restaurant, Stresa is serving dinner only, every night except Sundays, until October. The menu continues to focus on Italian classics.
Stresa: 2062 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd., West Palm Beach, 561-615-0200, StresaItalianRestaurant.com
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Texas de Brazil
This Brazilian-inspired steakhouse, part of a national chain, had served picanha steaks and tart-sweet caipirinha cocktails at the Downtown Palm Beach Gardens plaza since 2012.
It closed last year amid the plaza’s new expansion plans. On Dec. 16, 2021, it reopened just west at the Midtown plaza on PGA Boulevard.
The new Texas de Brazil took over the space where III Forks steakhouse had operated for 14 years before it closed in August 2021.
Texas de Brazil: 4645 PGA Blvd., Palm Beach Gardens, 561-293-7478, TexasdeBrazil.com
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Relocated restaurants: Double Roads, Stresa Italian, Texas de Brazil
