A few weeks ago, The Restaurant People, owners of Tarpon Bend, YOLO and VIBE, teamed up with investor/financier Steven Halmos and bailed out Jack Mancini and bought the building where the failed M Bar was located. Mancini had purchased the building a few years back, just before the economy crashed. The building has another space that was to be the new Mancini's.
Mancini had apparently written a bad check and the liquor license was headed to legal; the bills have now been paid by the new owners.
The building was purchased for $4.3 Million, the same price paid by Mancini in 2006.
The Restaurant People are building a new restaurant named S3 at the beach in the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach, which sounds like YOLO East.
At this location, the group plans on gutting both spaces and they're considering something more casual. They'll have some time to think about it; they won't begin construction until S3 is finished at the beach. It's likely that Karen Hanlon has her hands full with S3 and Gary Rack's new place in Delray Beach.
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The M Bar didn't quite last a year. Jack Mancini's M Bar is closed. Their Liquor license went into foreclosure on June 13, and a bar that can't serve alcohol isn't much of a bar.
Just over a year ago, we asked Jack Mancini for a menu. They wrote us back, promising to send one in a week. We requested it several more times. They never sent us a menu.
At the time, Mancini's long time Las Olas restaurant had closed, and he was preparing to open the M Bar down the street. Jack Mancini had purchased the building 2 years earlier with a plan to open a steakhouse and a lounge; a plan killed as the economy tumbled. The new plan was to open the M Bar and then open the new Mancini's next door a few months later. Mancini had hired a fancy PR firm and a brother/sister team of chefs and was hoping to cash in on the small plates gimmick; Chef Lauren Anderson had worked at Moto in Chicago where they have a 15 course tasting menu that rings up for $160 per person.
Mancini didn't consider some important factors. Trying to copy a first class restaurant with a 2nd class team rarely works out. The PR firm was great at throwing parties but had no idea how to position a restaurant, and Fort Lauderdale isn't Chicago.
I predicted that the "Global Tapas" concept had no chance of flying here in partytown; by the end of July both chefs and much of Mancini's kitchen staff had quit; we received word that he'd failed to make payroll. They tried to change the menu, but it was a half-assed attempt; they were still serving too small portions for too high a price. Word on the street is that vendors weren't giving Mancini credit. No matter, there were no customers to serve.
Most recently, signs went up touting a change to comfort food; but it was apparently too late. The windows are covered, and the M Bar is gone.
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