Critic's Review
Fork & Balls quickly and quietly closed their doors today; they deleted their facebook and twitter accounts without a word to their customers. No thank you to whatever regulars they had. A typical Tim Petrillo operation. Cold. Corporate. Hopefully they told their employees.
Word is they're working on a new concept. Steve Halmos bought the building (including the still For Rent restaurant next door) from Jack Mancini for $4.3M.Who wants to rent a restaurant where you have to compete with your landlord next door?
With $80K in taxes per year it seems unlikely they're getting much return on their investment so far.
Review 8/12/14
It was time to check out Fork and Balls. Talk of the Balls is calming down, and so I wandered down on a Sunny 86 degree day. I thought I'd hit pay dirt with a spot out front, but there's a sticker on the 2 meters that say they're "Valet only" from 10am-12am 7 days a week. There was nobody there, but I ended up parking down the block. There's a pay lot behind the restaurant that I could have sworn used to be free; but I figured it wouldn't take me very long to eat a couple of balls, so it only cost me $1.
There were 0 other customers sitting at tables at 2:38; there were 2 people at the bar. I asked for a booth figuring that they wouldn't be getting crowded while I was there. The place has a much different layout that the original 
The booths are tall and comfortable; there's enough privacy so that you don't have to look at the people in the next booth, unless you're about 6'10". I ordered an iced tea; my server informed me that it was Passion Fruit (or something like that); I prefer plain black or green but at least it was unsweetened. It was delivered without sweeteners but he got them quickly once I mentioned it.
One thing that seems silly is that they don't have any kind of sampler; all dishes require that you get the same balls. So if you order "Just Balls" you have to order 3 of the same. Same goes for the sandwiches. The price of "Balls on Top" is the same as ordering "Just Balls" and a side, so I decide to go low carb and ordered 3 F&B Blend with Traditional Tomato Sauce and a side of White Beans and Kale. The F&B blend is beef and pork; sort of like the meatloaf combo packages you can get at Publix.
Music is randomly odd, with Trick Daddy followed by Sinatra's "This Town" and Chaka Khan. Clearly they have no clear target audience. The Balls came out in less than 10 minutes.
Note that this is a small dish; the balls are about 1.75 inches in diameter. Nothing visually interesting about the balls. One thing that brought a chuckle was that the menu says that the balls come with Focaccia; they gave me a tiny piece of bread about the size of my thumb. Compare this $8 dish with what you get at Anthony's for $6.
Bigger balls, actual pieces of bread, and ricotta cheese.
The beans and kale were nothing like what I expected. I expected Kale and Beans, maybe sauteed in some oil like 
Getting back to the balls, I was astonished at how waterlogged they were. "Filler" is a word that kept popping into my head. The Balls were like cotton candy; I put a bit in my mouth and it just sort of disappeared. Add some thin tomato sauce that didn't seem to have much in it.
About half way through I experienced Eureka: We ASS-umed that the "Balls" were meatballs, but no-where does it say that they serve meatballs. Perhaps they don't contain enough meat to legally be called MeatBalls?
My server kept asking how everything was, and you can only use the word "Fine" so often. I mentioned that i expected something different when I ordered the Kale and White Beans, but he had no clue whatsoever what was in the casserole. "Just white beans and kale", he said. I can SEE carrots and some kind of meat, so if you don't know just say so.
I also asked him about the valet. "Oh yes, there's a valet all day". I had a window seat with a view of the valet station, and there was no human there for the 35 minutes I was in the restaurant. No cars either, but I hate to see good spots go to waste.
I ask for the check; no offer of a refill for my $2.95 glass of colored water. It wasn't really empty, but most servers offer anyway.
As I was signing the check, I saw a very large man in black cooking clothes up at the hostess station; "Could that be Bill Bruening" I thought to myself. He walked over to the table and asked how everything was. Of course I'm not going to tell him the truth, but it was an opportunity to find out what was in the beans. But he seemed unwilling to tell me, as he just said it was beans, kale and carrots. I can SEE meat, and there's some sort of sauce binding it together. But it was no use.
Bruening spent years at Sunfish Grill trying to copy Tony Sindaco's recipes; he was working at S3 and I guess they tapped him to make the Balls. I assume the recipes are chef/owner Peter Boulukos' so I won't criticize him too badly. Tony didn't think much of him, but then again, Tony doesn't think anyone else can cook.
The so-called "Restaurant People" don't really do restaurants; they build lounges that serve high-margin food. I've been to YOLO 100 times and never once ate in the dining room. It doesn't seem that expensive, but they give you 1/2 as much food as you get at other places. The meatballs at Anthony's are a lunch. Maybe it's not fair because I didn't eat much of the beans, but I can't give them credit for making a dish that I couldn't eat because it wasn't any good.
$20 and I wanted a sandwich as I walked to my car. Not a good thing.
Conclusion
It's likely that Petrillo and Boulukos got the idea from the Meatball Shop in NYC, but their model of mediocre food with "cost effective" recipes doesn't translate into good food. It's also a bad location; the only good thing about it is that they'll get the overflow from Rocco's Tacos.
While it seems impossible that neither Petrillo, Boulukos or any of their investors can tell in advance that their food isn't very good. But it seems to be the case.
Previous Commentary
I am one to admit when I was wrong. When I mentioned to a friend that they were going to call the restaurant Knife and Balls, he said it was impossible. Nobody would name a restaurant Knife and Balls, and he was right.
It seems impossible that anyone would use the word "balls" in a restaurant name south of Wilton Manors, but I guess owners Petrillo and Boulukos couldn't think of any more acronyms. YOLO and S3 aren't very good names for a restaurant; I actually liked Meatball Kitchen. You have to be a Meatball of sorts to be serious about this name; maybe it's just a trick?
"Fork & Balls" is what happens when you use your girlfriend for your marketing.
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