7960595087?profile=originalBurt Reynolds helped make the Pontiac Trans Am ‘the Car’ in the ‘70s. Photo provided

By Thom Smith

Back in the ’70s, the Pontiac Trans Am was baaad. And one particular ’79 model was the baddest of the baaad. Four hundred cubic-inch V8. “Black and bold” paint. Huge firebird on the hood, its wings surrounding the Shaker intake scoop that delivered air to the monster four-barrel carb. T-tops. Power windows. Even cruise control (a rarity then).
    Oil prices were rising through the sunroof and more drivers were pulling into import lots as MPG overruled HP. But Pontiacs still grabbed attention, thanks largely to Burt Reynolds’  astute performance behind the wheel in his Smokey and the Bandit movies. Firebird sales reached a record 211,453 units in ’79, more than half of them Trans Ams. List price? Loaded, an astounding 10 grand.
    They don’t make ’em like that anymore. Pontiacs are history. Oh, sure, restored Trans Ams can be bought … but few are like this, much less for three bucks. That’s the price of a raffle ticket being offered by The Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre (no connection to the old BRITT) and Mark Breiner and Patrick Meehan of Dream Giveaways for a restored ’79 Bandit. The car and an accompanying specially made Stetson hat are autographed by Reynolds, as is the log book detailing the car’s history, assembly line to present.
    Proceeds will go to several causes: New Beginnings Children’s Homes, the National Guard Education Foundation, Disabled American Veterans and a fund to build the new Reynolds Institute and reopen the Burt Reynolds Museum. And as a bonus, for $20 or more, donors will receive double the cash value of tickets. For example, $30 would produce 20 chances instead of 10. (www.Burt.WintheBandit.com or 877-700-8946)


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    7960594661?profile=originalEnough with lobster, says Gulf Stream resident and Boca Raton developer Anthony Pugliese. After owning The Station House, famous for its Maine lobster, for nearly 15 years, he’s selling. The sprawling one-story restaurant on Lantana Road seats about 270, has room to expand, and according to various real estate sites, takes in about $2.7 million a year. Asking price $1.95 million.
    Pugliese, 68, says he wants to devote more time to his real estate business.
And don’t forget that problem with a little court case. On Aug. 26, Pugliese and his business manager, Joseph Reamer, agreed to a plea bargain for trying to swindle more than $1 million from Subway founder Fred DeLuca. They were partners in a failed concept for a 41,000-acre planned community in Central Florida. Pugliese was recently diagnosed with cancer, his attorney said, and did not want to add a lengthy trial to his family’s burden. Still, Pugliese could get 18 months in jail and 10 years probation.
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    How much stock should we — in southern Palm Beach County — put in a report that originated in San Francisco? It’s like comparing hurricanes to earthquakes, although not quite so dramatic. A financial analysis website with the oh-so-California name NerdWallet has released a statistical analysis that claims Boca Raton is the best city in Florida to open a restaurant.
    Using U.S. Census reports, NerdWallet compared population growth, density, payroll costs and growth in labor and housing costs for 530 U.S. cities with populations of at least 50,000. Boca came in 27th. An earlier NerdWallet study ranked Boca 11th best for starting small businesses, notable for averaging $1.3 million in revenue per business. Imagine how it would have ranked if IBM were still in town.
    Among restaurants, however, second best is even more of a surprise — the Broward County bedroom community of Tamarac (34), then Sanford (37) and Orlando (38), Miami Beach (48), and Deerfield Beach (58). Delray Beach ranked a lame 316, West Palm Beach 400. The top five: Cedar Park and Mission, Texas, Franklin, Tenn., Smyrna, Ga. and Round Rock, Texas.  


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Folks who’ve been around Palm Beach for a while are blown away when they step into the island’s newest dining hot spot. The building isn’t new, but the look sure is, and quite simply, Meat Market, at 191 Bradley Place, is hot. Owners David Tornek and Sean Brasel, who’s also the chef, hope to keep it that way.
Gone are the heavy stucco exterior and the low, orange acoustic tile ceilings that characterized a half century of restaurants, some popular, some not. For 44 years it was Maurice’s. That gave way to Lulu’s, Janeiro, Club Y and Palm Beach Steak House. All distant memories now thanks to the vaulted ceiling, bubbly light fixtures and rich paneling alternating with glistening metalized tile.
The food isn’t bad either, as Brasel and his staff turn out inventive dishes that look and taste great. Perfect example: roasted whole cauliflower.
Following its Miami Beach sibling’s lead, Meat Market just wrapped its first series of summer wine dinners with a four-course pairing with Far Niente. Now on to season No. 2.


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James Strine, sous chef at Cafe Boulud, has been making a name for himself a little farther south in Delray Beach in the inaugural Chef vs. Chef competition at Max’s Harvest. Sixteen of the area’s top chefs began going toque to toque in mid-June, using surprise ingredients and a lot of improvisation to create dinners for a panel of expert judges. The drama has been thick enough to cut with a knife ­— a chef’s knife, of course — as the competition has steamed, fried and grilled toward the Sept. 21 final.
In their quarterfinal, Strine and Adam Brown of The Cooper in Palm Beach Gardens were challenged to use blue rhino plantains (from Big John Farm in Delray), black garlic and Florida lobster. For his second dish, Strine offered beer-battered lobster with dried buttermilk in a black garlic/brown butter emulsion. Why the beer? “Cuz I was drinkin’ it!” Strine quipped.
In the first semifinal on Sept. 9 Strine will meet Victor Meneses from El Camino, just a few doors south of Max’s Harvest. John Thomas of Tryst became the third semifinalist Aug. 26 when he eliminated Eric Grutka of Ian’s Tropical Grill in Stuart. The secret ingredients included lionfish. On Sept. 16, he’ll face either Bruce Feingold of Dada or Chris Miracolo, former chef at Max’s Harvest, now at S3 in Fort Lauderdale. They’ll compete for that final spot on Sept. 23.


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For more than a decade, South Shores Tavern in Lake Worth was a lively gastropub with a reputation for community involvement. Few knew the space had been on the market for five years, and when the new owners took over in July, they quickly closed it. The buyer has not been identified, aside from the corporate name of Peters 502-504 Lucerne LLC, which is linked to a Boca Raton family.        

Florida corporate records reveal two other links, the Vegan Sisters and Way Beyond Sushi, that lead nowhere, and previous restaurant ventures Kyoto in Delray and Suite 225 in Lantana.
    Speaking to The Palm Beach Post, Chris Fleming, a spokesman for Peters 502-504 Lucerne, said the site will remain a restaurant and the new owners are looking for the right tenant, one willing to invest as much as $200,000 to improve the building, built in 1955.


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    This name’s a keeper: Screamin’ Reels IPA. Six-packs of the first canned brew from Saltwater Brewery in Delray are now available at grocers and other retailers, bars and restaurants. Saltwater already serves the southeast Florida coast from Key West to Sebastian and plans to expand to Mouse country and North Florida soon. Football fans should be elated, too, as cans of Screamin’ Reels will be sold at Sun Life Stadium. Next in line for the cannery: Sea Cow Milk Stout and Wheat Wave.
                                 

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Tickets should go fast for this year’s Go Pink Luncheon, Oct. 21 at the Boca Raton Resort & Club. For wildly inventive comic actor Martin Short, however, cancer is no laughing matter. When he was 17, his mother died from breast cancer. Five years ago, ovarian cancer claimed Nancy Dolman, his wife of 30 years.    
Tickets are $175 and proceeds support breast cancer programs at the Christine E. Lynn Women’s Health & Wellness Institute at Boca Raton Regional Hospital. (955-4142)


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    Acerbic comedian Dennis Miller, the right wing’s answer to Bill Maher, is among early commitments to the 26th Chris 7960595262?profile=originalEvert/Raymond James Pro-Celebrity Tennis Classic, set for Nov. 20-22.
Miller, who is making his first appearance, will join Evert veterans singer-songwriter David Cook, actors Alan Thicke and Timothy Olyphant, actress Maeve Quinlan and  International Tennis Hall of Famer Pam Shriver.
The Boca Raton Resort & Club will host pro-am matches and a cocktail reception on Nov. 20 and the annual charity gala the following evening. The celebrity tennis will be played Saturday and Sunday (21-22) at the Delray Beach Tennis Center. For ticket info, visit www.chrisevert.org.


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7960594699?profile=originalThe Free House in Delray Beach, named for modern interpretation of a British tavern/pub that is unhinged — not connected to a specific brewery. Photo provided


    Delray’s Atlantic Plaza is now home to what is claimed to be the largest restaurant on Atlantic Avenue, Free House. The name has nothing to do with giveaways but is instead a modern interpretation of a British tavern/pub that is unhinged — not connected to a specific brewery. Thus, at Free House, a customer can choose from numerous libations, brews and spirits, plus plenty of food, while watching plenty of sports on 22 TV screens.  
    The brews flowing from its 10 taps will change daily, the selections displayed on a giant chalkboard. In addition to unusual imports, Free House will stress such local craft breweries as Due South, Saltwater and Funky Buddha.  
    Free House is the latest concept from transplanted Michiganders Catherine Murray and daughters Heather Houston and Kristin Dauss. Heather and Catherine were previously involved with DIG, an organic concept that had moved to Atlantic Plaza from western Delray. But when the opportunity arose for Free House, the three jumped at it.


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    7960595863?profile=originalMust be something in the water. Charlie Boice, a retired air traffic controller who lives in Palm Beach Gardens, won the 2015 Ernest Hemingway lookalike contest in Key West in July. A persistent fellow, Boice won on his 15th attempt. He joins select company: Of the 36 winners since the contest began in 1980, four have called Palm Beach County home.
    Dick Parrish, a Delray Beach liquor salesman was the first, in 1982, and succeeded by Leo Rost, an author/playwright (Dick Deadeye) from Boynton Beach. Parrish died in 1986, Rost in ’87.
    A decade passed before Bill Fountain, who ran West Palm’s Downtown Development Authority from 1989 to 2003, claimed the title in 1995. Upon his retirement, the Fountains moved to Islamorada but recently have moved to his old college town of Baton Rouge. He was the last local “Papa”until Boice, although Bob Doughty (2005) comes close. He delivered the mail in Deerfield Beach.

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    Lots of activity at the Norton Museum of Art this month. But don’t worry about all those construction vehicles in the west parking lot, or the activity around the museum’s giant banyan tree. It’s staying put. But the museum is closing … for all of three weeks … to set up the next big exhibits.
    Even as work progresses on its giant $60 million, three-year makeover, the Norton will remain open, presenting on Sept. 26 its first big event of the season, the 10th annual Mid-Autumn Festival (or Moon Festival). A salute to its world-class Chinese art collection, the day will be filled with activities, tours and talks, a performance by renowned Liu Fang, on pipa and guzheng (lute and zither), plus tea and mooncakes.
    Moon Fest guests will be able to enjoy two summer exhibitions given extended runs: The Summer of ’68: Photographing the Black Panthers, featuring the work of photographer Ruth-Marion Baruch and hubby Pirkle Jones, will run through Jan. 17; Going Places: Transportation Design, from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection, continues through Jan. 3.
    Thanks to a reciprocal loan program among the Norton and other museums, two special treats will add punctuation: Vincent Van Gogh’s The Poplars at Saint-Rémy (Nov. 5-April 17) and Edgar Degas’ Portrait of Mlle. Hortense Valpinçon (Nov. 5-May 15).

Reach Thom Smith at thomsmith@ymail.com.

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