A vastly expensive redevelopment of a classic Firestone tires garage has hit the skids, but Page Six hears that its owner thinks it might still turn the corner.
Miami mogul David Grutman — who has a string of successes in Miami nightlife, including the ever-popular LIV nightclub — seems to have finally got himself a lemon after he bought the Art Deco building for some $10 million and spent four years turning it into a complex with three restaurants. And then all three of them shut down within a year.
The trio of spots — an upscale version of a classic ’50s diner, Winker’s, a sweets store called Tooth Fairy and trendy Asian-fusion place Sushi Fly Chicken — opened in September and were immediately packed with Grutman’s many celebrity friends, including Pharrell, David and Victoria Beckham and Jonathan “Foodgod” Cheban.
But the one-time rubber emporium quickly began to look a little … tired. Winker’s and Tooth Fairy shut up shop less than 60 days later.
Then Sushi Fly Chicken — which hosted birthday parties for both Victoria and her son Romeo — also closed recently, and Miami spies tell us all the storefronts are boarded up. (Some locals have even been joking that the spots were cursed with a “Posh and Becks Hex” since they had been such frequent guests at the seemingly troubled spots.)
But insiders tell Page Six exclusively that they’re not actually boarded up — it’s just that there is once again construction going on behind screens because they’re moving Sushi Fly Chicken into the larger Winker’s space and turning the vacated SFC space into a bar fronted by the wildly popular Canadian-American bro-centric influencers the Nelk Boys, who have their own line of hard seltzers called Happy Dad.
It’ll be the first time that the prank-happy group — which boasts a stunning 7.4 million followers on YouTube — has had its own brick-and-mortar bar to sling its popular bubbly booze. In fact, it appears to be the first time social media stars have launched their own bar.
Grutman recently announced plans to open a steakhouse with rapper Bad Bunny.
