How Miami food halls are helping local chefs thrive and giving diners new flavors

In Miami, restaurants come and restaurants go, but food halls remain.

There has been change over the years, of course. Vendors have closed concepts to open standalone restaurants or strategically moved to different food halls in search of the perfect rent, amenities or customers. Some have opened similar concepts at different food halls, aiming to spread their reach.

But the popularity of the newest Miami-area food hall, Shoma Bazaar in Doral, which opened in March 2022 and has drawn big crowds ever since, seems to indicate that the trend is not going away anytime soon.

What’s good, what’s bad, what’s new: The only guide you need to Miami food halls

The first trickle of Miami’s food hall era began in 2015 in — where else? — Wynwood. The outdoor Wynwood Yard launched in 2015, not exactly as a food hall but as a gathering place, with five vendors and a garden. There was a bar, too, and soon events programming. If you didn’t mind sweating a little, it was a good place to be.

In 2017 the trendy neighborhood also became home to the first real indoor food hall, the 10,000-square-foot 1-800-Lucky, which featured Asian cuisine. In 2018, two Italian offerings arrived at Brickell City Centre: Casa Tua Cucina, which opened quietly at one end of the mall and the three-story La Centrale, which opened to great fanfare at the other end. The fanfare, it must be noted, didn’t improve La Centrale’s odds of success: La Centrale closed in 2019 after failing to draw an audience, while Casa Tua Cucina flourished and eventually became a traditional sit-down restaurant. Even La Centrale’s replacement, Luna Park, is now closed.

Customers dine at Shoma Bazaar in Doral. In a whimsical touch, the seats on the left are actually swings.
Customers dine at Shoma Bazaar in Doral. In a whimsical touch, the seats on the left are actually swings.

1-800-Lucky is still with us, while Wynwood Yard is but a fond memory. The Wynwood Yard team also opened Jackson Hall, a health-conscious food hall in the Jackson Health District, in 2018, but the concept closed abruptly six months later.

But the food halls kept coming, in Miami Beach, in Little River, in the Design District. The appeal for customers was not necessarily the prices. Eating at a food hall is usually not inexpensive, though you can find something for around $15-$19. It’s the choices that draw the diners. A group of people with different tastes can easily have a meal together. Parents are freed from the shackles of pizza: While their fussy kids indulge, they can try something new. It’s also a less intimidating way to try unfamiliar cuisine or a new concept.

Nicole Ponseca shows off one of the specialties, pork sisig, at her Filipino restaurant Jeepney inside Miami’s 1-800-Lucky food hall. Ponseca opened the fast-casual version of her upscale New York restaurant in Wynwood to test the market.
Nicole Ponseca shows off one of the specialties, pork sisig, at her Filipino restaurant Jeepney inside Miami’s 1-800-Lucky food hall. Ponseca opened the fast-casual version of her upscale New York restaurant in Wynwood to test the market.

‘It opened my eyes’

Being a food hall vendor can be useful to chefs, too. Nicole Ponseca, the force behind the Filipino fine dining restaurant Jeepney in New York, wanted to enter the “fast/fancy” market, as she calls it, and opened a small outpost of Jeepney at 1-800-Lucky in 2021. She didn’t know if there was a market for Filipino food in Miami and was able to test the concept more inexpensively than she could have with a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

“It opened my eyes on how to scale the business and how to grow my business,” she says.

Ponseca had to reconfigure some dishes so she could teach others to make the recipes, and finding sources for Asian ingredients was difficult at first. Now she has a supplier and believes Miami has been a good place to test a concept.

“You get foodies who are curious,” she says. “If you make them happy, they’ll evangelize. It’s a responsibility when you’re introducing new cuisine. . . . I continuously tweak the menu. I want to keep creativity alive.”

Larry Galper with a cacio e pepe and margherita pizza at his restaurant PizzElla in Time Out Market Miami in Miami Beach.
Larry Galper with a cacio e pepe and margherita pizza at his restaurant PizzElla in Time Out Market Miami in Miami Beach.

Lessons in growing the business

Time Out Market Miami in South Beach is the first real home for PizzElla, the creation of chef and owner Larry Galper, which started last March popping up at breweries and cafes around Miami. The food hall, which invited him to become a vendor, has been a good roof over his head.

“We’re a brand that just started under a 10-by-10-foot tent,” he says. “It’s a huge deal for us. The exposure, and the space is gorgeous, and it’s great to join a group of local chefs and food concepts who all have kind of similar stories. They started as hustles out of home kitchens in smaller capacities that grew and grew . . . We’re learning a lot about each other. We do what chefs love to do – feed each other — and it’s cool.”

Being part of a larger whole has been bracing for Amin Evrahimi, founder of Shahs of Kebob, as well. His first restaurant, a small, unassuming spot that has been open almost five years in South Miami, serves Persian street food from recipes passed down through generations for hundreds of years. But it could never compete for media attention with high-end, trendy and ambience-forward restaurants.

Chef Aitor Garate Berasaluze prepares a boneless ribeye steak at his Basque restaurant Lur in Time Out Market Miami in Miami Beach.
Chef Aitor Garate Berasaluze prepares a boneless ribeye steak at his Basque restaurant Lur in Time Out Market Miami in Miami Beach.

Opening at Shoma Bazaar landed Shahs of Kebob firmly in the spotlight.

“Shoma ended up being a destination, and the exposure we have gotten from being here has been very good,” he says. “The people who come here are family-oriented. They’re local Doral people. . . . and Doral is a tight-knit community. They came here, and they fell in love with the place, and they continue to come back. I’ve made a lot of friends in Doral. They’ve adopted us.”

Evrahimi also praises the level of expertise in his fellow vendors, which he says has helped him build the business and led to opportunities for further expansion. He’s considering an expansion to northeast Miami-Dade, maybe Aventura or North Miami or possibly even Hollywood.

“It’s amazing, there’s so much talent in this building,” he says. “You would think we would all want to jump on each other, but we don’t. We all feed off this energy to be better. We’re helping each other out on every aspect of our restaurant business.”

Bartender Susan Mendez prepares a drink at Time Out Market Miami in Miami Beach.
Bartender Susan Mendez prepares a drink at Time Out Market Miami in Miami Beach.

Bigger and better

Evrahimi isn’t the first to use exposure in a food hall as a jumping off point for bigger things. One of the biggest food hall success stories are Val and Nando Chang, whose Peruvian-Japanese fusion spot Itamae opened at MIA Market in the Design District and was so successful it left the hall and moved across the Palm Court to occupy its own space.

Christian Dominique followed that path as well. He opened his Caribbean restaurant Manjay as one of the original vendors at The Citadel food hall in Little Haiti, and he has spun that concept into a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Wynwood. He credits his experience at the Citadel for helping his business grow in a more affordable way.

“When you start in the business, it’s easy to close down shop,” he says. “One mistake and that’s it. This is definitely great for people who are trying to test their products.”

Finding the right landlord to work with is key, he says.

“This was a great experience,” he says. “When we opened we literally had nothing to do. We just went to the store, bought food, came to The Citadel and cooked it. Even during COVID, the landlord gave us free months and lowered the rent. He really helped us. He really wanted us to succeed.”

That sort of working relationship makes him loyal to The Citadel, and he has no plans to leave. Besides, now he has a soft spot for food halls.

“Where else can you go with friends who want to eat pasta when you want to eat Caribbean?” he says. “It has to be a food hall. It eases so much pressure from people when they want to get together and can’t make up their minds.”

Aileen Vasquez, 28, and her boyfriend, Daniel Brown, 28, both from Orlando, look over the menu at Chinese restaurant Yip in 1-800-Lucky food hall in Wynwood.
Aileen Vasquez, 28, and her boyfriend, Daniel Brown, 28, both from Orlando, look over the menu at Chinese restaurant Yip in 1-800-Lucky food hall in Wynwood.

Advertisement