from Ocean Drive Magazine - June 2004

Has Success Spoiled Lincoln Road?

Maybe not, but the increasing encroachment of national chains and mass theme eateries - most blatantly symbolized by Johnny Rockets - has locals and business owners airing their views on both sides of the vanilla malt

The tunes from wall-mounted juke boxes the size of personal pizzas—“La Bamba,” “Y.M.C.A.,” the entire Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” repeating once every ten minutes—drift through the open door. The waiters, in floppy aprons and jaunty caps, seduce customers with helium balloons and dances ranging from impromptu jigs to the Macarena. Former hepcats, now known as parents rushing to catch the new Rugrats movie at the nearby 18-screen theater, enrich the diets of their clubkids-to-be with French fries and ketchup that the servers shake into specially designed paper containers.

Welcome to Johnny Rockets, the Mango’s of Lincoln Road. If the foot infantry of chain stores—Pottery Barn, Gap, Victoria’s Secret—was the first wave of attack on the individuality of Lincoln Road, then Starbucks, Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop and especially the recently added Rockets are the air-force bombers carrying the megatons required for one huge, unforgiving blast.

Or are they? Certainly Rockets, at least, lacks both bohemian understatement and esoteric chic, the twin themes of Lincoln Road gone by. Instead it stands for the three C’s of American culture: crassness, commercialism, capitalism. Still, its formula has obviously been successful since the chain was founded in Los Angeles in 1986: This is the store’s 150th location, and the eighth in Florida owned by franchisee Ken Eldridge, who says he is “proud to provide Miami with the all-American Johnny Rockets experience.” Ultimately, the perception of the arrival of Johnny Rockets on our arguably favorite local thoroughfare—what some are labeling a death rattle and others are hearing as the alluring jingle of ching-ching—changes, depending on whom you ask.

For many folks who used to lounge at the Lazy Lizard and the Wet Paint Café back in the prerenovation day circa 1990, Johnny Rockets’ mass-appeal cuisine—burgers, fries, wings and such—is a turnoff. Toby Spill, owner and broker at Exquisite Properties, has lived on the beach since 1986 and holds office space on Michigan Avenue overlooking the back of Johnny Rockets. “When I think of Lincoln Road, I think of gourmet food, not junk food,” he says. “Johnny Rockets belongs on Ocean Drive for the tourists who just do not know any better or who like American junk food.”

Others are bothered by the mere thought of a chain eatery invading sanctum Road territory and what it represents. Longtime Beach resident Susan Johnson says, “Johnny Rockets is definitely the beginning of the end. It’s one thing when a street of eclectic shops and restaurants gets a sprinkling of commercial retail stores because they want to target the audience [that’s being] delivered. But when the chain restaurants come in, there is no kidding ourselves anymore. The street is out of financial reach now for the creative business owner.”

In fact it’s easy for those who live or work on South Beach to both predict and fear the precedent that Johnny Rockets is liable to set, if only because it has happened before. Publicist Larry Carrino notes, “The commercialization of Lincoln Road is just a local manifestation of what happens to any area that is suddenly bathed in the ‘look what’s hot’ limelight. It’s unfortunate that when areas heralded as ‘artsy’ or ‘offbeat’—as Lincoln Road once was—begin to draw the masses, leases skyrocket and independent business owners get squeezed out. Soon only the homogenized corporate entities can afford to set up shop and the whole area loses the uniqueness that made it so wonderful to begin with.” For emphasis he hauls out a quote from the Christian Slater ’90s vehicle Pump Up the Volume: “All the great themes have been used up—turned into theme parks.”

The initial “local manifestation” of which Carrino speaks, obviously, is Ocean Drive, which used to be the nearest oasis for thirsty locals. “At this time the clubs had tables, chairs and pool tables. Customers did not need to display bank statements to feel welcomed. You could wear what you wanted, mostly black and jeans,” Nanci Rosenfeld, a wine-sales representative for Transatlantic Wine & Spirits, reminisces. More importantly, “No one was mugged. South Beach was the perfect getaway, Ocean Drive in particular. Whisky Bar and Sempers!”

The devolution of Ocean Drive began with the installation of properties such as Wet Willie’s and, yes, Johnny Rockets, which is still serving up burgers on the boulevard there. Epicurean residents quickly divined the future of the area and followed gastronomic pied pipers Norman Van Aken (then of a Mano) and Robbin Haas (ex of Colony Bistro) to Van Dome and Bang off the Drive and onto the Avenue. For all intents and purposes, like “Mambo No. 5,” Ocean Drive had been played. Johnson confirms, “I’ve lived on South Beach for 14 years and haven’t stepped on Ocean Drive since they built a Friday’s there. The streets no longer reflect what was originally attractive. It has become another mall, another condo world.” Philosophically speaking, she adds, “We Americans habitually rape what is unique and appealing. We will take any area that might show signs of prosperity and turn it into an insta-mall. Has anybody been to Manhattan lately?”

As with St. Johnswort in lieu of Prozac, then crumbling Lincoln Road was the natural replacement for the synthetic. Or, as Pacific Time’s chef-proprietor, Jonathan Eismann, puts it, “a sane alternative to Ocean Drive. Lincoln is for grown-ups. It always was.” Though he notes, “Of course a SoBe grown-up only need be about 16. Bell Curve, you know.”

But Eismann, perhaps contrary to expectation, is not anti-Rockets. “Before it opened, I did fear it like a flesh-eating virus,” he admits. “I feared it would upset Balans—a really local honest place. I feared it would bring the beltless/stinky kids and loud gangs of teens.”

Jon Axelrod, manager at Balans, says he doesn’t notice any extraneous noise from Johnny Rockets. “The customers might complain once in a while that the music is too loud, but it doesn’t bother us. The management has no problem with it.” In fact, the two restaurants, whose tables meet in the middle, have been serving split parties of customers instead of competing. “Our menus are different. [Johnny Rockets] is a good place to go with the kids. If the kids want to drink a milk shake at one of our tables while their parents eat or vice versa, that’s fine, it’s business. You make the parents happy and the children happy.”
Similarly, experience—the actual Johnny Rockets experience—taught Eismann differently. “I went to a birthday party for a four-year-old there. The staff was great, the place was clean, the service was good [and] my smokehouse burger was very tasty, although Joe Allen doesn’t have to worry. Okay, my fries were cold. [But] I had a fully carbonated fountain Coke that didn’t taste like mold or seawater,” he says. “I give Johnny a thumbs-up.”

NBC-6’s Ari Odzer, while not enthusiastic about the eatery’s kitsch, also doesn’t have a problem with it: “I’m not a big fan of Johnny Rockets, but as long as unique spots are still on the Road like the Frieze, Cafeteria, Pacific Time, Paninoteca, Van Dyke, Books & Books, Rosinella and all the rest, then there’s room for Johnny Rockets.” A lifelong South Florida resident, Odzer says, “Lincoln Road has a dearth of family-friendly eateries, so if you’re taking the kids to a movie, then having the Johnny Rockets premovie meal option nearby can be a good thing. As long as Subway and KFC don’t move in, the Road’s character will survive the recent alterations.” Ah, but therein lies the crack in the cement: Precedents have now been set.

Maybe Eismann and Odzer’s positive attitudes stem from the fact that they are parents of young children—of which there were very few, if any, on Lincoln Road in the past. Or Eismann, for one, has simply earned the right to be somewhat secure. “As one of the longest survivors of Lincoln Road, my restaurant is older than dirt—literally, since the dirt has been changed twice since 1993 [during renovations]. Honestly, Johnny Rockets doesn’t spell ‘the end’ to Lincoln Road at all. Not even close.”
Other Road business owners agree. Gerry Kelly, a partner in State nightclub, assesses the situation economically. “Lincoln Road has definitely become more commercial. But at the same time it has provided us with an amazing variety of art and fine dining. It is a major tourist attraction and being a little commercial does enable businesses like my own to operate successfully for 12 months a year,” he says. “I remember 11 years ago when we only had a season from November until March, and afterwards, nothing. Nightlife in general helped make Miami Beach what it is today and in order to survive we must ensure that our Beach has a 12-month-per-year business.” Like other Road lessees, it should be noted, Kelly pays $30 a square foot in monthly rent. To afford that, business must be as brisk as iced tea.

Even restaurateurs like Myles Chefetz, whose Nemo, Big Pink, Shoji Sushi and Prime One Twelve establishments are not situated on (or even near) Lincoln Road, are in favor of its current state. “What has happened on Lincoln Road is a mirror image of what we have seen in South Beach through the past nine years. I would refer to this as healthy development: from the once artsy strip to a street with national tenants (Lincoln Road); low-rise walk-up apartment buildings with bike racks out front to luxury condo towers filled with Porsches and Ferraris (South of Fifth); eclectic streetwalkers and quiet lunches at News Cafe to Friday’s and Fat Tuesdays (Ocean Drive),” he points out. “The natural progression and development of South Beach, while causing an extreme loss of charm, has produced higher rents, greater sales for those in the restaurant and hospitality industry, and a more mature and stable business environment.”

Eismann concurs: “Steve Muss told me that he has a saying: ‘As goes the Fontainebleau, so goes Miami Beach.’ Lincoln Road has become the product of much of what has happened to all of the Beach—Ocean Drive, SoFi, etc. Perhaps we may now say: ‘As goes Lincoln Road, so goes South Beach.’ ”
Is the commercialism of Lincoln Road a la the vanilla malt really such a terrible fate? No, says publicist Dindy Yokel, who has represented small business owners on and around the Road for a decade. “As tourism has changed in Miami—more people from a variety of classes visiting here, not just the chichi—we need a restaurant like Johnny Rockets so that visitors do not carry the perception home everything is expensive in Miami. [It’s a] big complaint that I hear often. I see it as a balance.” From a personal standpoint, she says, “Also, I like a good hamburger once in a while, and as long as they don’t sing while I am there it isn’t too bad. So, from a resident perspective, I like it, too—not a fussy place and easy to go to before or after the movies.”

“The gentrification of Lincoln Road is indeed a mixed bag. Progress is a two-sided sword, and now that Lincoln Road has evolved into Miami Beach’s major mall, sure, there are too many commercial stores and eateries,” acknowledges Susan Brustman, who publicized the Road as an entity in the mid ’80s for the Lincoln Road Partnership and also for the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. But she prefers to focus on the up side. “Those of us living and hanging on South Beach loved the historical funkiness of Lincoln Road but also longed for a place to buy a decent T-shirt, sit with friends over a great glass of wine, grab a salad or a meal. Books & Books survived, ditto the ArtCenter/South Florida and Lincoln Road Cafe. Pacific Time has evolved into one of our best regional restaurants. Johnny Rockets on Lincoln Road, the end of the world? I think not. I had a really delicious chicken sandwich there.”

And the admission of Johnny Rockets is not even close to a state of emergency if you consider the initial purpose of the walking mall: to attract consumers. Developer Carl Fisher assuredly never intended for his equivalent of Broadway to become a haven for dope addicts and the transient homeless, as it was approximately two decades ago. (Though if you look closely, sometimes it seems status quo.)

Native South Floridian photographer and art teacher Stacy Shugerman recalls the glory days of Lincoln Road when, as a very young child, her mother would take her shopping to Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller, two of the anchor stores that held retail court there beginning in the 1930s. They would all don white gloves, de rigueur for the time period. Are Williams-Sonoma and such, the department stores of the new millennium, really so very different? After all, there are still matters of protocol to observe.
One can also argue that Lincoln Road has at least one chain eatery that predates most of the other current businesses: Baskin-Robbins. Its continued existence makes the gap (or the Gap) from the white gloves, protecting the hands of ladies, to the latex ones, protecting the public from the hands of unwashed food workers, a bit less impossible to bridge.

Then there is the conformation factor. Artist Franklin Einspruch has noticed that this branch of the eatery differs in some ways from its clones. “The Johnny Rockets in the Grove plays oldie hits loud enough to hear across the street at CocoWalk. When they opened on Lincoln Road, I was expecting a stereo war between them and Segafredo across the way. Imagine the din: European house music in one ear, ‘Leader of the Pack’ by the Shangri-Las in the other. But there hasn’t been a peep out of them—just the usual retro styling on the waitrons and the burger shtick. I wonder if they’re trying to fit in.”

They might be. Like its counterpart on Ocean Drive, the Lincoln Road Johnny Rockets is one of the few links in the chain to serve wine and beer. Granted, you can find better labels on airplanes, but at least the attempt is being made.

More worrisome should be the litter that has already started to accumulate around the location. Paper plates, napkins and straw wrappers line the sidewalk like so much pigeon excrement—which, if you think about it, brings us further back in time than it takes us forward (perhaps a just cause for the nostalgia).
But what are longtime residents, artists and business owners really missing about the “old” Lincoln Road and minding about the “new” one as epitomized by Johnny Rockets? In a nutshell, the rising rents, which increasingly increase and can only be afforded by conglomerates, have booted individuality from the mall. “The real turning point was when Jeffrey’s Restaurant’s lease went up three times what they were paying,” Rosenfeld says. “Jeffrey’s was a fine-dining icon on Lincoln Road. It closed its doors and left a message on its answering machine explaining that after ten successful years of business it was leaving Lincoln Road because it was priced out of control.”

Cafes and bars—many where the city’s writers hung out to craft their stories—were only part of the Lincoln Road people-watching package. We once had scores of workshops-cum-galleries where we could gaze at the artists, publicly involved in their projects, and even take pottery and drawing classes from them. For many years, the Miami City Ballet practiced in front of storefront windows, where “you could stand and stare at ballerinas sweating with real live homeless people staring with you,” Dewey LoSasso, executive chef at the erstwhile Foundlings Club in the late 1980s and early 1990s, notes. You could also go across the boulevard to another kind of studio and fill your eyes with belly dancers. At night, locals went to the interactive No Shame Theatre, to poetry slams, to bars where the live musicians were the neighbors who kept you up all night playing the conga drums.

Along with Lincoln Road, locals have gained products and services. What we have lost, as both participants and observers, is the process of creativity that gave Lincoln Road its spirit.
The current direction of Lincoln Road was most likely set in pink cement during the second renovation, which paved the way smooth for baby joggers and other accoutrements of suburbia. Einspruch, though, doesn’t believe it’s entirely too late. “Lincoln Road is headed towards one of three states: a viable, interesting, pedestrian-driven contribution to the city, like Las Ramblas in Barcelona, a drunken strip like Ybor City, or a cookie-cutter shopping-mall hell like The Shops at Sunset Place. Hopefully South Beach will always be too gay and artsy for frat boys and conformity shoppers to feel comfortable here, but the Johnny Rockets is a step in the direction of Ybor City and a half-step towards Sunset Place.”
The saving grace, he thinks, may come from “the City’s new willingness to allow street performers to operate. Most of the acts are lousy, but the band shell at Euclid is ripe to become a Covent Garden-like permanent street venue once the scene picks up. A reliable supply of weirdness like that would prevent Lincoln Road from becoming boring.”

But not too much freakiness. Not many want to return to the time when a deserted, deteriorating Lincoln Road wasn’t safe to walk on after 10 p.m. For instance, LoSasso, who is opening North 110 in North Miami Beach this month, recalls when The Foundlings Club security guard was murdered, which led to having an armed guard posted for a year.

Nor does Chispa chef-restaurateur and Beach graduate Haas shed many tears for the Road of yore. “Maybe the idea of a cool, bohemian South Beach is what locals thought they had back in 1986. What I witnessed was a lot of people losing their asses. More people went bankrupt than made it. We had a lot of fun, [we just] did not make any money. Mostly what I remember of the old South Beach was just that: bars, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, hotels, sunglasses shops, clothing stores, the old Publix with no parking, more bars, and nightclubs.”

Indeed, Eismann speaks for many when he says, “I can now park in a covered garage. We have plenty of parking, a safe place to walk, and some decent retail, and the South Beach beauty crowd now strolls the Road more than the Drive. I loved the old Lincoln Road. I might not love all of it now, but I do still like it very much. I wouldn’t want to be in business anywhere else in Miami.”

Progress means compromise, indisputably. Places such as Johnny Rockets, however, may be a symbol of what can happen when the deal is becoming, like a bad breast enhancement, one-sided. For now, it might be charming to munch a cheeseburger and mentally do the hustle along with the waitstaff. But if that’s the way you feel, don’t be too alarmed when Arby’s and its new mascot—a talking oven mitt along the lines of the Pillsbury Doughboy—seizes a competitive edge and moves its concept in next door.