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Orlando Opinions – #22 – Cashless is King

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PFT Media Podcast NetworkTRANSCRIPT: The Daily City has confirmed directly with owner Lou Palo he’s opening up Stasio’s Italian Deli and Market in the front window space of the building at the corner of Robinson & Bumby in the milk district.The expected opening time frame is March/April. The deli will offer Sandwiches made to order on homemade bread, Full espresso bar, handmade Pizza and Breakfast sandwiches and hot breakfasts. The market space with shelving will be stocked with products imported from Italy like olive oils, balsamic vinegars, prosciutto, Pasta from Italy, seasonings, snacks, and bottles of wine.

Maitland City Centre is getting a food hall after all! A new food hall hybrid… (what?) is joining this Maitland project after the Grandstaff/Ashy/Bonomo/Miller team yanked their Spindrift Food Hall concept last year from the 6,756 sq ft space due to “too many new (restaurant) projects hitting the (Maitland) market at the same time.” Ahem. What?

The Maitland City Centre Market food hall hybrid project consists of 5 individual food stall bays ranging from 550-632 sq ft. Each stall will have its own glass garage door w/separate entrance door and individual restrooms.

Each stall will have its own outside seating area linked to their neighbor to allow for patrons to easily dine, drink and experience the various concepts in an open format.

Tenants will sign 3-5 year leases with rates starting at $2500 a month. They’re looking for businesses that love the idea of a food hall but want the ability to open and close by their own hours, create their own unique spaces and continue to build their individual brands.

Small local food makers interested in getting a spot in this market should contact Willow Shambeck (willow@acrefl.com) or Sandi Bargfrede (sandi@acrefl.com).

We have a great interview with Steve Brown, owner of The Glass Knife in Winter Park at 276 S. Orlando Ave (MAP) on the blog. Here’s a snippet but be sure to go read the full story.

Brown chose to make his restaurant 100% cashless. No cash is accepted. Purchases must be made with credit, debit, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Brown was inspired to go cashless after a trip to New York City. While dining at Danny Meyer’s Daily Provisions, he experienced firsthand their cashless payment system and loved it. He learned the main reasons for Meyer’s installation of the system were safety and guest service. His waiters were traveling home by foot or subway with wads of cash. They were easy targets being that they were still wearing their work uniforms. It tipped thieves off. Also without having to travel back and forth to tables and cash registers, waiters had more time to serve guests.

Brown is seeing the improved guest service with this system. In a restaurant with a standard payment system, the register can only be operated by one employee. With the cashless system, any employee in the restaurant can take orders and receive payment. This speeds up the guests’ wait times and leads to more free time for employees to take care of guests. Also, it eliminates the over/under moment at the end of the night for employees using the register that occurs at normal restaurants. There’s no chance an employee can be over or under his cash amount with a cashless system. Everyone is accountable because it’s all on record.

As for safety, there are no waiters with wads of cash in their pockets leaving the restaurant.The bakers working overnight are not working in a building full of cash. The building itself never has cash in it. Everyone is safer.

And finally, some quick hits:

Chela Tequila and Tacos‘ has a January 23rd opening date in the former KASA space in downtown Orlando. What I am excited about most is their Taco Tuesday deal: all you can eat tacos for fifteten bucks. We stopped by there and the employees are working tirelessy. Window clings have gone up, furniture’s been turned on its side and new metal multi-colored chairs were spotted this week by The Daily City.

The SODO District location of Gringos Locos at 517 E. Michigan Street is now open. The exterior has has 2 new temporary signs, a yellow paint job with faux brick accents and a freshly tarred parking lot.

Leguminati announced Tuesday January 9th they’re making a second attempt at opening their first brick & mortar location. This will be a partnership with Foxtail Coffee inside the Hourglass Market in the Hourglass District. Plans call for an opening in the first quarter of 2018. Leguminati will offer plant-based breakfast, lunch, and dinner options seven days a week at this location. Their menu will include everything from CrunchMacs to Breakfast Sandwiches.

Orlando Opinions – #20 – The Street Food District

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PFT Media Podcast NetworkTRANSCRIPT: For years Tasty Takeover, Orlando’s original weekly food truck event, took place across two separate rear parking lots in The Milk District: a larger lot behind 2428-2434 E. Robinson St and a smaller one behind 2424 E Robinson St. The lots were connected by a pass-through. They regularly hosted 13 trucks.

Starting Tuesday January 9th, Tasty Takeover moves to the smaller lot and go from from 13 to 10 trucks and a new event called “Tuesday Food Trucks” run by Berio Enterprises LLC will take over the larger lot with an as-yet-undisclosed number of trucks. The lots are next door to each other and both events will run every Tuesday 6-10pm.

The addition of “Tuesday Food Trucks” will give The Milk District two food truck nights running on the same day of the week at the same time of day. Continue Reading …

Orlando Opinions – #19 – There’s a New Sans Serif In Town

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PFT Media Podcast NetworkWelcome back to Orlando Opinions. I’m Mark Baratelli. I’ve got a passion for Orlando and a bod for sin.. Let’s get started!

Back in May we introduced you to The Hourglass District, a mass of older buildings purchased by National Real Estate for the purpose of turning them all into shops and restaurants, really turning a dead corner into a hot spot where people want to be so the developer can build buildings around it and rent them out. Back then the developers told The Daily City that one of the old structures, a dead 3/4 acre car wash structure at 416 Curry Ford Road, would be transformed into a farmers market with gathering spaces and a lounging area.

Those plans have changed according to a rendering we found credited to Interstruct. In that rendering, the dead car wash structure is shown as a food truck park! In the rendering one can see the trucks parked underneath the car wash roof, Adirondack chairs, wooden planters acting as space dividers, lighting, greenery wall, patio covering and what looks like an orange sculpture. You can check out the rending on thedailycity.com.

A 1925 building across the street from the soccer stadium  617 W. Central Ave got approved by the City for a major overhaul of its facade including giant wood and metal walls covering the front of the building, indoor and outdoor bars, a bocce court and ornamental fencing. The name was to be… Tubbs Brewing. This was in 2016. Sine then, no work has been done to execute that facade overhaul. They did however get permits to turn an empty corner space into a food truck and lot beer handout on game days. So there was that.

Now the owners have returned to the City with a new facade plan, this one being MUCH LESS ambitious. Essentially, they’re proposing to preserve the original design of the 90-year old façade, open the previously boarded up window areas, and add a new contemporary storefront design and glazing. The name is to be… Big Squeeze.

Maudlin trucking company is turning the Merita Bread Company building into a 77,600 sq. ft. truck dealership and service center. They’re placing a new 54-ft sign facing I-4 so they can enjoy the same advertising-to-I4 benefit that the Merita sign enjoyed. Since the new I-4 will be signifigantly higher when completed, they need this taller sign. The appearance review board says ok. Now it has to go to City Council. Reember the neon charm of the older Merita bread sign? This new sign will be nothing like it. It’ll be two empty cubes stacked on top of eachother with their brand name (sans serif people, SANS SERIF) on the top. It’s got the charm of an office park cafeteria 6 months before it closes.

The artwork of famed street artist Shepard Fairey/Obey Giant has begun to pop up around Orlando on billboards owned by Outfront Media. Fairey is best known for his Obama “Hope” poster. There are 5 billboards so far. Each signs’ design and message are completely based on prior works by Fairey including a  globe installation inside the Eiffel Tower, an 8-story musal in England and an art show that recently closed in Los Angeles. We called for a press release but they didn’t have one prepared yet. Losers.

And finally, The squealy-boxed Orange County Bar Association turning off their squealy boxes is not the only positive change coming to the North Quarter. Church Street Entertainment, owner of Ember, Latitudes, Cahoots, Chillers, Irish Shannon’s, 180 Skytop Lounge and Crafted, is bringing their brand of FUN to the district. They’re turning the North Quarter Tavern into a “neighborhood focused local pub” and Bar Room into a “modern interpretation of a classic cocktail lounge.”

The two spaces are owned by Craig Ustler, who developed the two original concepts. Ustler has announced he is hanging up his restaurant developing pumps after 17 years to focus on developing Creative Village and Florida Hospital Health Village. Who’s gonna hire the waiters Mister Downtown???? This will be his second and third restaurant handover with the first being handing over the Citrus Restaurant space to Reyes Mezcaleria.

North Quarter is a sleepy suburb made up of over a thousand apartments. The retail is nil, the restaurants are few, and most buildings don’t even feature ground floor retail. These folks bringing a potential shot girls, hot bod contests, three-for-one tequila nights vibe may be just the thing to get North Quarter residents out of their suburb and into the street to get so drunk they can’t push the buttons on their elevator to get back home.

Continue Reading …

Orlando Opinions – #18 – Alfond Inn’s Nasty Kitchen

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PFT Media Podcast NetworkTranscript of Episode 18:

Hamilton’s Kitchen, a restaurant on the first floor corner of Alfond Inn, a lovely 122-unit boutique hotel built in 2013 in Winter Park received 27 health code violations from DBPR during a routine health department inspection November 29th. A full list of the violations in on thedailycity.com. Here are a few highlights from the 27 violations:

  1. They were unable to locate the certificate which proves their nonexempt fish offered raw or undercooked had undergone proper parasite destruction. This was deemed as a high priority.

  2. Foods in the reach-in cooler are not allowed to be held greater than 41 degrees. Raw fish was 48F, raw burger patties wereat 51F, heavy cream was at 49F and more. All the products were moved from walk in cooler about 2 hours per chef and iced. Their french toast batter was found to be 48F and left out for 2 hours with an insufficient ice bath. This was deemed a sa high priority

  3. Milk and heavy cream cartons were found to not be not date marked.

  4. According to a Chef, three trays of shell eggs were left on a prep table for about 2 hours. Holding shelled at room temperature with an ambient air temperature greater than 45 degrees Fahrenheit is not allowed. This was deemed as a high priority.

Continue Reading …