The Key Club, a former Coconut Grove hot spot known for its happy hour bites and dinner, suddenly closed on Saturday, June 29, after two years in business. Despite the fanfare during its opening in 2022, according to sources familiar with the closure, the Key Club closed solely "due to the sale of the building it occupies." The Key Club was owned and operated by Groot Hospitality and David Grutman based out of Miami.
On July 1, New Times spoke to restaurant and hospitality broker Felix Bendersky, owner and founder of F+B Hospitality Leasing Brokerage based out of Miami, who alerted the publication about other restaurants in Coconut Grove also being shopped around for for large sums of money. "It's also not just the Key Club [being bought out]," Bendersky said, in part, at the time. "There are five other newer Coconut Grove concepts quietly being shopped around for massive amounts of key money."
In November 2020 the first Planta Queen in Florida opened in CocoWalk. It has since opened another location in Fort Lauderdale on Las Olas Boulevard.
Photo by Steven Lee
There's a Canadian Connection Between These Restaurants
This isn't the only Canadian-based restaurant making its way to Coconut Grove — or potentially making its way out.Planta launched its first restaurant in Toronto in 2016 under founder and CEO Steven Salm of Canadian-based Chase Hospitality Group and cofounder and executive chef David Lee.
After its success, the group opened the first U.S. location of Planta in South Beach in 2018 in partnership with Grutman of Groot Hospitality, who remains a partner.
A few years later, the group formed Planta Queen, the sister restaurant to Planta. In November 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first Planta Queen in Florida opened in CocoWalk, which was newly refurbished at the time. It has since opened another location in Fort Lauderdale on Las Olas Boulevard.
Although Planta Queen in CocoWalk, which has ties to Grutman due to his partnership with Planta, is located above the former Key Club space, which was a Grutman project, the two restaurants were unrelated.
Other restaurants owned and operated out of Canada in Coconut Grove are Amal and Level 6, which are owned by Toronto-based Ink Entertainment, the folks behind Sofia and Byblos.
This pattern is interesting to New Times, as a wave of Toronto-based hospitality groups are coming to Miami.
About Chop Steakhouse & Bar
Chop Steakhouse & Bar, a Canadian steakhouse chain, was founded in Edmonton, Alberta, in 2006 by Northland Properties Corporation, which also owns Moxies. The steakhouse is known for its steaks, seafood, and chicken combined with "warm hospitality and beautiful rooms." It has multiple locations across Canada, including in Toronto and Vancouver.Chop is a member of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, which supports farmers and ranchers. According to Chop, the restaurant is Canada's first full-service national restaurant brand to have a sustainable sourcing claim on all its beef.
This story will be updated once more information is made available.
Chop Steakhouse & Bar. 3015 Grand Ave., Coconut Grove; chop.ca.
