Critic's Review
Thursday's opened on Friday for Lunch and Dinner; if I'd known that they were open for lunch I would have come down, but it's too far for me to walk on a Friday night. While I live on Las Olas, this place is 3/4 of a mile from downtown. I figured I'd go on Saturday for Lunch; or brunch as it turned out.
I parked right across the street and there were plenty of spots, so any speculation that people would be breaking down the doors of this new venue was quickly dismissed. It was a nice day and they have a couple of tables on the sidewalk, but I figured I'd eat in the dining room to get the full experience. But when I walked inside, I had a change of heart.
The place was dead empty, with 1 women sitting at a high top who didn't seem like a customer. I wasn't going to sit at this huge bar, and the high tops along the rear wall looked very lonely.
As I scanned the dining room, I couldn't see myself sitting at one of the big booths. The place is uncomfortably fancy; gaudy really. The kind of place you took your grandmother on her birthday.
The only other customers were outside, and they weren't smoking, so I asked for the table in the opposite corner. I was given both a brunch and lunch menu, as well as a cocktail menu. The lunch menu is mostly $14 sandwiches, so I figured I'd have breakfast. A server came over promptly and I ordered coffee.
Good coffee; I could even drink it without sugar, which I can never do with the cheap coffee they serve in most Fort Lauderdale restaurants.
Crusty bread and butter is included, although this isn't the kind of bread I want with an omelet. I ordered the "Guyere and Fine Herbs" omelet, assuming that it was "fines herbes", which is a classic French omelet. I asked what was included; it comes with a salad. That sounded fine, so I didn't question him further. He came back a few minutes later and said I could get cole slaw; but I didn't see how cole slaw would go with a cheese omelet. "No", I said, "Do you have any potatoes?". They had gratin potatoes for an additional charge, but I told him to just bring me the salad.
The patio is somewhat contrived; the storefronts are too close to the road for a sidewalk cafe, so they cut a notch into the restaurant to make a small patio. I guess you've got to have a patio on Las Olas. The big mirror is totally unnecessary.
The issue with this end of the boulevard is the road noise; and the view. The pretty part of Las Olas ends at the tarpon river, and down here you get a lot more traffic.
All of the traffic between Victoria Park and the Beach passes by here. As people walked by in their cut off shorts, tee shirts and flip flops, I wondered how this place was going to fit in.
The food came out quickly; 10 minutes from when I ordered it.
Not a fantastic presentation, but I'm not big on presentation.
When I make an herb omelet I'll sprinkle the herbs into eggs so you get the green mixed in with the yellow; it makes for a nicer looking omelet. There was a decent amount of cheese inside; it was a good guyere; not the cheap stuff that tastes like swiss cheese.
The "classic" Fines Herbes has parsley, chervil and tarragon.; I admit to not being exactly sure what chervil tastes like, so I can't vouch for the authenticity of this. I can say that the salad had way too much dressing; it was a good dressing but it was a bit overdone.
All in all, the omelet was ok. Nothing great or bad about anything on this table.
While I was getting a refill on the coffee, I asked how much the valet was. He didn't know, but he said he'd ask. As I finished up, I frankly forgot that I'd asked about it. 10 minutes later he came back with a drawing of a map showing me where it was, but no price. Apparently nobody knows how much it is. It's one of those street corner valets; not really a valet just for this restaurant.
It's about 150 yards away; about the distance from Yolo to Lobster Bar Sea Grill. Not that far, but not close either.
Conclusion
In between a 7-Eleven and a bicycle-themed bar sprouts the kind of restaurant you'd expect to find on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the 70's. They don't build restaurants like this anymore, at least not in the USA. I'm not sure that the kind of people who live in and visit Fort Lauderdale will appreciate this decor. It's a flip flops kind of town; people look for casual, comfortable restaurants. I can't see the ball cap crowd packing into this place to drink mimosas all day.
The prices are high, although not higher than the other overpriced restaurants just down the road. $12 for French Onion soup seems high to me; I think they'll have trouble getting people in here for a $20 lunch.
I would have had to be blown away by the food to change my mind about the location and the decor, and I didn't encounter any ground-breaking culinary skill. If the $14 cheese omelet came with Pommes de Terre Lorrette that would have been something special; but having to pay an extra $7 for Gratin Dauphinoise to make it special prices it out of range. Getting $2 worth of food for $14 puts this place in exactly the same class as every other restaurant on this street; most of which have vastly superior locations.
In a town where people rave about crepes from a package, is anyone going to bypass the more convenient Le Bonne Crepe and Cafe De Paris for an $18 French Dip in this glittery tavern? I have my doubts.
Previous Musings
They've been working on this for a year, and you wonder what they could be building. From the permits they're spending well over $1 Million here. I wondered why someone would spend so much to build a restaurant on this end of Las Olas.
But the reason is now clear; the owner Bernard Ragueneau is the founder of Thursday's in Montreal, a 24,000 mega venue featuring a Bistro, bar and a club. Bernard has seemingly retired and moved to Fort Lauderdale, leaving the Montreal business to be run by his son and other family members. He also seemed to own an adjacent hotel.
So we're now going to have Thursday's, Fort Lauderdale, supposedly a miniature recreation of the original Thursday's, which is on Las Olas, but not really. Of course Rocco's redefined the Eastern Boundary of Las Olas, so why not this place?
So what we have here is another rich guy opening a restaurant on Las Olas; the difference is that this one has experience running a restaurant. Fort Lauderdale isn't Montreal, and Fort Lauderdaleans aren't Canadians, and parking down here will be challenging. Nobody has really tried to open a French restaurant in recent times around here; the existing places are old and not of much interest to the modern Fort Lauderdale crowd. Bring on the Tartare and Poutine and let's see how if flies.
Parking will be difficult. No spots behind the restaurant and maybe 5 in the street shared by 3 restaurants.
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