Description
It appears that Grill Republic has closed. They went into "No Sale" on liquor on 9/7, which usually means that they stopped paying their bill a month ago.
Now that they're closed I can tell the story. When Voodka was being built, one of the owners, Michel, sent over some drawings and indicated that he planned to open a "European" concept featuring the foods of Europe. I pointed out that *most* Euro concepts fail quickly because Europeans who think America sucks because it isn't more like Europe don't understand the American People. Sipping Espresso with biscotti is nice to do once in a blue moon but we don't do it every day here. You don't want to open a place where people stop in twice a year.
Michel seemed like a nice guy; he said he'd invite me in once they were close to opening but he never did. I figured he was just overwhelmed. I took a walk down on the day they were SUPPOSED to open (they offered very poor communications to the public), and I was greeted by the "other" owner. They weren't ready to open yet. So I'm standing there with my $2500 camera and I introduce myself, and instead of inviting me in to show me around, he basically sent me on my way in a very rude way. As I was walking home I decided that I'd just treat this place like any other restaurant in the city.
I went in the first week they were open for a $7.50 Amstel to find a menu where the only "European" sounding dish was "Scottish" Salmon, which of course isn't really European. They had Foie Gras and Caviar and a bunch of overpriced stuff that I had little interest in trying.
I was never compelled to set foot in the place again, even when they shuttered Voodka and radically changed the concept to some sort of "Grill" with hanging cows as decor and no compelling meat offered on the menu.
This place is a perfect example of "How to Lose Your Money" by getting into a business that you don't understand. It's not the only one.
*********
Voodka is closed, and the same owners are re-opening something else. I'm guessing either 1 of 2 things here:
I thought about going to brunch at Grill Republic, so I scouted around and found some pictures of their brunch food. The steak and eggs didn't impress me.
Kind of a joke for $17. For a "Grill", it was the only meat on the menu, but they say it's pan-fried. They also have "Butcher's Hash' eggs, but there's no meat in the hash, which I thought was odd.
I went down las olas to take some photos, and the place had exactly 0 people eating inside; there were several tables outside. But it was like 88 degrees; damn tourists. Too hot for me; I didn't really want to pay $16 for 2 eggs, sausage and coffee anyway.
I hope those cows are properly secured.
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to a member function getUser() on null in /usr/local/www/sites/classes/comments-class.php:267 Stack trace: #0 /usr/local/www/sites/classes/comments-class.php(75): threadedComments->formatComment(Object(stdClass)) #1 /usr/local/www/sites/classes/comments-class.php(77): threadedComments->printParent(Array, 1) #2 /usr/local/www/sites/classes/comments-class.php(100): threadedComments->printParent(Array) #3 /usr/local/www/sites/comments.php(74): threadedComments->printComments(Array) #4 /usr/local/www/sites/single-post.php(208): require_once('/usr/local/www/...') #5 /usr/local/www/sites/post.php(22): include('/usr/local/www/...') #6 /usr/local/www/sites/index.php(172): include('/usr/local/www/...') #7 {main} thrown in /usr/local/www/sites/classes/comments-class.php on line 267