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Last Update: Mar 8th, 2017
La Vie Pompano

B Square Burgers and Booze

1021 E Las Olas Blvd
Fort Lauderdale FL, 33301
954 999-5216
Overall Rating
1.7
Food
Service
Ambiance
Value
Last Review
08/26/2016

Details

Hours: 11:30p to 12am
Attire: Casual
Parking: Street Metered
Outside Dining: Yes
Happy Hour: M-F 4-7pm Choice of Smaller Portion Appetizers

Pros

Friendly Service

Cons

The food I had was awful
Small Bar
Wildly Overpriced

Critic's Review

They announced that they had happy hour from 4 to 7, but their website doesn't say what the specials are. I decided to trek on down at 4:30 on a Friday to give the place a quick look.

This side of the street was surprisingly dead, with only a handful of people at Bossi's, Sweet Nectar and this place. I took a quick tour and immediately decided that I didn't like the layout. There's just a communal table on the west side of the restaurant, there's a small bar up front, that was much smaller than I expected.

B Square Burbers Bar Area

Just a few seats inside; this isn't the kind of bar you can go to when it's rainy or windy. Inside the room isn't too impressive either; you really shouldn't put out an artist's rendition if the finished product isn't going to be anything like it.

B Square Burgers Interior

Although it was cooler inside, there were 4 people for 6 seats, and just 1 owner-type guy sitting outside. Sitting at the outside bar gives you the yin-yang of the 90 degree heat with puffs of AC from the inside.

My bartender was friendly if not overbearing with the hard sell of the Guacamole. I didn't want chips. Their happy hour has a selection of beers, wines and cocktails for $5 each. I ordered a beer while I decided on an appetizer. $5 for a Heineken isn't the kind of deal that's going to get me down here again.

B Square Burgers Bar

I didn't want chips or a salad as I wanted to sample their culinary prowess; the only choices were Turkey Meatballs or "Szechuan-Style" shrimp and calamari. Not a thrilling choice. I wasn't doing meatballs, so I went with the calamari.

Not much going on. While I waited for the food just 1 person came in; with a dog. A server came out with a cup of water which the dog immediately knocked over. The deck doesn't seem to have any drainage. they may be drilling some holes.

17 minutes and the Food was out.

B Square Burgers Szechuan Shrimp and Calamari

Oh boy. This looked like a sticky mess. My first bite exposed an overly sweet, cloying sauce. I assume that the black stuff was the "soy caramel".

B Square Burgers Sticky Mess

The shrimp were all hopelessly overcooked; the cherry on top was that they missed some of the shells. The "light breading" when combined with the thick, sweet sauce was just a bad idea.

B Square Burgers Szechuan Shrimp and Calamari

I fought my way through this; luckily I had the beer to wash down the sweetness. Don't order this dish. Take my word on this one.

Conclusion

It's not fair to trash a restaurant based on 1 dish, but I've been doing this long enough to be able to "know" a lot from a very small sample. The dish I had today was a complete failure from head to toe; a poorly conceived dish executed with absolutely no skill. While I've never been a fan of Asian Calamari, the version at YOLO and Big City are light years better than this mess.

The menu screams of amateur overreach; seemingly random concoctions of ingredients thrown together to "sound" good with an apparent contempt for the main ingredient. There's a reason that Lobsters are served simply steamed with drawn butter; throwing in lobster meat with cheeses and mayonnaise is sacrilege to those who truly enjoy good food. Here it's been done simply to jack up the price. The menu here is designed to appeal to people who think that good food is defined by a laundry list of cool sounding ingredients and not the expert accentuation of flavor from a great piece of meat or fish.

I find it difficult to believe that this place can pull off this menu. I originally thought that this was going to be a burger joint; a casual space where you could drink, watch a game and have a burger. It's anything but. With a smallish bar, I don't know what this place is trying to be, other than yet-another overpriced place to get bad food on Las Olas.

Previous Musings

I find it interesting that they're openly advertising that they stop serving food at 10pm and the bar is open until 12AM when their liquor license doesn't allow them to serve alcohol when there's no food available.

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The "chef" owner of this place is Rafael Palomino, who seems "involved" with a number of restaurants in the northeast. Reading some of the reviews of the restaurants, it doesn't seem promising. All glitz, bad food. Good when it opens and then falls off fast. Sound Familiar?

This is a chain restaurant. These guys are professional restauranteurs that slap up different concepts all over the place. My guess is that Palomino puts together the concept and then they hire some fake chefs the crank out the food. Some of the concepts are pretty hokey; Mesa Mexican in Easton, PA has a lot of not Mexican stuff on the menu. A tapas restaurant with Italian food. Pretty misguided stuff.

Kind of like a burger joint with pictures of everything but burgers on their FB page?

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B-Square Burger Co doesn't seem to be a Burger Joint (as you'd conclude from the name); but it's poised to open soon. They obtained their operating license on June 9 but no liquor license so far.

Construction as of 4/16/16:

B-Square Construction as of 4/19/16

TooJay's founder Marc Jay Katzenberg and Connecticut Restauranteur Tommy Febbraio are opening a burger joint on Las Olas. The sign in the window, IDDI, means that they're spending some coin building the place out; IDDI is the company that did Grille 401, Kaluz, Mario's Osteria and the new Broward Center; they're known for their high end designs. There's not much foot traffic (or parking) on this end of the blvd, so we'll have to wait to see what they have draw us down.

From the Artist's rendition, it looks like a nicer place than expected. It better be, based on what they're going through to get it open.

B Square Artist Rendition

Construction as of 10/31/15:

B-Square Burgers

B Square Construction

Nothing new from Tommy. It took them 6 weeks to get the permit for the Demolition. The way this is going it's going this is going to miss the season. Nothing like opening a new restaurant in May in Fort Lauderdale.

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