The Jungle Queen has changed owners
Plus a 315-seat restaurant coming to the W, and Fairfax Drive dug up through August 7.
The Jungle Queen has changed hands. What Now Miami, which calls the boat beloved, reported the ownership change at the vessel that paddles along the city's waterways complete with a barbecue and dinner show. That is the whole picture in one line: the city's waterways, a barbecue, a dinner show. The news here is not the itinerary and not the entertainment. It is the ownership. Anyone who has taken the cruise, or handed the tickets to visiting family and stayed home, now has a new name behind the operation to keep an eye on.
A 315-seat restaurant is coming to the W
Motek By The Sea is opening at the W Fort Lauderdale Hotel, and the seat count is the detail to hold onto: 315 guests, across indoor and outdoor dining areas overlooking Fort Lauderdale Beach. Three hundred fifteen. Read that number again with the beach in mind. The seating splits between areas under a roof and areas in the open air, all of it looking out at Fort Lauderdale Beach. Whatever eventually lands on the menu, the geometry is already on the record: a dining room at the W, sized for 315, pointed at the sand.
Lynora's is bringing its Italian classics here
Lynora's is bringing its Italian classics to Fort Lauderdale. The restaurant was founded in 1976. Two facts, and both are the interesting part: Italian classics, and that founding date. What it looks like once it lands here is still ahead of us. For now the entry to mark is the category and the vintage — an Italian classics restaurant carrying a 1976 founding date is on its way into the city. Italian classics is the promise on the sign. Nineteen seventy-six is the number sitting behind it, and it is the number that makes this one stand out.
Paradise Found on Las Olas is still dark
Paradise Found, the clothing store on Las Olas Boulevard, remains closed following a fire. The store was deemed unsafe as a result of the damage, which is a different category of closed than a shop with the lights off on a slow July afternoon. Las Olas runs on its storefronts, and one of them is out of commission with fire damage behind it. It has stayed closed since the fire. If it was on your list for a walk down the boulevard this weekend, plan the block without it.
Popcorn Frights returns with its biggest lineup yet
Florida's largest horror festival belongs to Fort Lauderdale, which is the kind of civic distinction that rarely makes the tourism brochures. WSVN reported on July 29 that Popcorn Frights has put together its biggest lineup yet. Bigger than every previous edition, in a festival that already carries the largest-in-the-state title. For horror people, that combination is the entire pitch, and it is happening in their own city rather than someone else's. The genre has a real home here, and this edition is the largest version of it so far.
Sunset gets a week more of digging on Fairfax Drive
If you live in Sunset, Fairfax Drive at SW 16th Street is a work zone through August 7. The city and Southern Underground Industries are repairing roughly 20 feet of sewer gravity main, working weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with intermittent noise and dusty conditions expected. The work also includes restoring the affected asphalt and landscaping, so the torn-up ground comes back. Twenty feet of pipe is a small repair with a loud footprint on the handful of streets closest to it, and those are the streets that will hear it all week.