Lantana has reached a lease deal with the Dune Deck Café that will give the town control of the beach pavilion in exchange for letting the restaurant build and run an outdoor bar.
The town intends to rent out the pavilion, which it restored five or six years ago, for events such as birthdays, weddings and picnics, Town Manager Mike Bornstein said.
The Dune Deck Café’s outdoor bar would be in the area south of the restaurant between the Marine Safety Building and the boardwalk.
“We’ve been kicking this around for a while,” owner John Caruso told council members at their Feb. 14 meeting.
Bornstein “requested the possibility of using the pavilion for functions.”
The Dune Deck Café could benefit from the outdoor bar in a couple of ways. “It would help us to have a full liquor license. We have beer and wine,” Caruso explained, noting the spirits shortcoming has cost the restaurant. “We’ve lost weddings and different parties.”
But Caruso was looking ahead to an impending obstacle as well. “In lieu of the bridge closing, perhaps this will give a little spark” and help the café “try to muddle through the next two years,” he said. “Hopefully, we won’t lose too much business.” The deal was an agreement to change the restaurant’s lease dated May 1, 1997, with Lantana.
The outdoor bar will be covered with an awning attached to the Marine Safety Building and match the Dune Deck Café’s awnings, according to the agreement. If, for some unforeseen reason, the Dune Deck Café’s lease weren’t renewed in 2017, certain elements in the outdoor bar would remain.
“There’s only certain things that can be removed,” Caruso said. “The hoods stay in the kitchen. The new bar area would stay. The coolers would stay,” said Caruso, noting, “I’m going to pay for all the improvements.”
The Café, at 100 N. Ocean Blvd., is open Monday through Friday for breakfast and lunch, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Brunch hours on Saturday, Sunday and holidays are
7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Comments