Five years after the pandemic put Miami in the national spotlight, drawing in new residents and companies with its business-friendly regulations and year‑round sunshine, the region's booming dining scene is now showing strain and leaving some restaurants struggling.
There was an "oversaturation" of new restaurants and concepts that opened in the aftermath of the pandemic, said Felix Bendersky, a broker who heads F&B Hospitality, a brokerage focused on food-and-beverage clients, to CoStar News. "There were more concepts coming in than there were people."
The new concepts and flavors elevated the city's culinary game, with Miami being named the No. 1 best foodie destination in America in a recent study by personal finance data company WalletHub, based on factors such as most restaurants per capita. But that proliferation, and resulting stiff competition, has driven up prices for restaurant space and good employees, pitting well-capitalized corporate operators against longtime mom-and-pop shops, with losses on both sides.
It's an issue that's happening to some degree to restaurants across the country as consumers pull back on discretionary spending and restaurant operating costs rise.
Local favorites in South Florida that have closed up shop include Ortanique on the Mile and Cafe Vialetto, with both eateries in business for more than 20 years in Coral Gables. Sugarcane in Midtown Miami closed in 2025 following a 15-year run. And Gramps Wynwood closed in January after 14 years of being a staple of Miami's nightlife and providing cheap drinks, pizza and wings to late-night revelers in the heart of the city's arts district.
Out of towners have also faced their fair share of struggles. Scottsdale, Arizona-based Evening Entertainment Group's Bottled Blonde opened in 2022 and closed for good the following year. New York's Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer opened in Brickell City Centre in 2024 only to shut abruptly eight months later. And Jeepney, a Filipino hotspot in New York's East Village that opened in Miami's Wynwood in 2021, closed at the start of 2026.
Still, plenty of restaurants are doing well and two Miami-born restaurants, Pura Vida and Motek, are branching out to other parts of the country after opening a number of locations in South Florida. Motek, offering Israeli cuisine, is expanding to New York’s Williamsburg, and Pura Vida, with its emphasis on healthy eats, has expanded to nine locations in New York and California.
Permitting woes
Adding to the financial challenges is the city's permitting system that businesses have called sluggish. While Florida as a whole is known for its pro-business attitude, the city of Miami and its permitting department historically isn't known to move fast, said Bendersky, and that often leads to lost time and money for restaurant operators.
And Miami's slow season — over the hot summer months — has returned after vanishing when Florida had less-restrictive capacity policies than other states during the pandemic, which drew customers from other parts of the country. That means restaurants need to get creative to attract cash-strapped locals during the summer if they want to make it to the lucrative winter high season.
Still, there have been success stories, said Bendersky. New York-based Major Food Group is one example. The company behind New York staples like high-end Italian cuisine from Carbone and steakhouse Dirty French, now has nine locations in Miami, up from five two years ago, and another five in Boca Raton. The two South Florida cities are the second- and third-largest markets for Major Food Group, behind only New York.
Major Food Group's success in the region extends into other real estate, with the company lending its name to an under-construction luxury residential tower in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood where it plans to operate private dining options for residents as well as a waterfront restaurant.
Some local eateries have also thrived. The 113-year-old Miami Beach establishment Joe’s Stone Crab generated nearly $47.7 million in gross sales, ranking No. 3 on a list of the top 100 independent U.S. eateries in 2025 by Restaurant Business. The top spot was claimed by nearby Mila, a mediterranean-Asian fusion restaurant opened by Miami-based Riviera Dining Group in 2020, which generated $51 million in sales.
But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Too often, enterprising restaurateurs see those kinds of numbers and fail to realize that all that glitters is not gold, Bendersky said.
Different city
In Miami's Wynwood arts district, Aegean restaurant Doya is surrounded by streetscape murals, warehouses and mid-rise luxury apartments that have become a hallmark of the neighborhood. Doya has won a number of accolades from the local media and praise from the globally known Michelin Guide. The restaurant has scored more than one of Michelin's Bib Gourmand distinctions — a prestigious recognition for serving "exceptional food at great value,” according to Michelin’s website.
Rob van den Blink, a native of The Netherlands who is one of Doya's founders, knew that he wanted to open a restaurant in Miami as early as 2019, when the city "was a completely different place than it is now," he said in an interview. That was “before the immigration of" concepts from New York, Los Angeles and London, he added.
It took three years for Doya to open its doors in a former warehouse space at 347 NW 24th St. While building out new restaurant space takes time, dealing with Miami’s permitting system posed another hurdle, Van den Blink said. “It's extremely difficult to navigate … the city of Miami’s permitting and approvals process,” he said. “I still have PTSD from that process.”
That’s not uncommon, said Bendersky. The broker told CoStar News that even the most prepared teams will still take anywhere from 15 to 18 months to open if they’re building a space from scratch. Miami's new mayor, Eileen Higgins, told CoStar News in an email that she is fully committed to helping business owners frustrated by long permit delays.
“It's extremely difficult to navigate … the city of Miami’s permitting and approvals process. I still have PTSD from that process.”
Bendersky added that the best way to avoid falling victim to an expensive buildout and the long permitting process is to lease a former restaurant space: “Get something that you can open within three to six months … second gen is the way to go."
Those spaces are few and far between, however. Miami’s retail sector continues to face limited availability, driving a slowdown in retail leasing from the 3.5 million-square-foot high of 2022 to 2.2 million square feet in 2025. But it’s not for lack of building, with over 3 million square feet of retail space added since 2023 already 90% leased, a CoStar report states.
That lack of space means restaurants pay a premium for Miami’s most in-demand neighborhoods like Brickell, home to celebrity-backed club restaurants like Sexy Fish and Gekko, or Miami Beach's exclusive South of Fifth area where Joe’s Stone Crab and Major Food Group’s Carbone are located.
Different neighborhoods
Those neighborhoods don't guarantee success, however. Some of Miami’s newest restaurants that have managed to survive are in neighborhoods not in core areas that few would have considered a decade ago. Helped by lower rents, it's in these areas where restaurants can provide “value,” added Bendersky.
Examples include Boia De, a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant hidden away in an old retail strip center on the north edge of Miami’s Design District, “technically in Little Haiti,” said Bendersky, or Sunny’s Steakhouse in the Little River neighborhood. Sunny's was the only Miami-area eatery that made it on the New York Times’ 2025 best restaurant list.
“Those guys are like, 'OK, we can't make money if we're paying $250, $300 a foot'" in rent per month. "There are such great residential markets like Miami Shores, Keystone, Biscayne Park, North Miami ... Neighborhoods where you're going to have 12-month-a-year support” from residents and not depend on tourists, Bendersky said.
Retail rents across Miami can vary wildly, even within a submarket. For example, the Wynwood and Design District neighborhoods average about $69.39 per square foot but CoStar data show some of the highest-paid retail rents can reach up to $415 per square foot.
Navigating the city’s permitting system or finding an affordable spot are just some of the key ingredients restaurants have to tackle before opening up shop.
“Restaurateurs need to understand that the busy season is just that, a season, and they need to prepare their balance sheets for the off-season, and they need to stay within their zone of what they can afford, who their clients are, and what their key competencies are as a restaurant," said David Helbraun, founder and managing partner of New York-based hospitality-focused law firm Helbraun Levey.
Regional growth
Helbraun, like other executives from the northeast over the past few years, opened the 40-person firm’s second U.S. location in South Florida in October. Located at 75 Valencia Ave., the new office sits in Coral Gables. The city is one of Miami’s most desirable neighborhoods, brokers say, known for its Mediterranean architecture and a wide mix of restaurants that include the ever-reliably packed Hillstone and the 14-seat, Michelin-starred sushi spot, Shingo.
Helbraun decided to open an office in South Florida after his New York clients told him they couldn't find a one-stop shop law firm in the region. But South Florida presented some new situations for Helbraun, who previously worked in restaurants and owned cafes and coffee shops throughout Manhattan and has more than 20 years of experience.
“The most drastic thing is the seasonality and how to prepare for it, how to understand it,” said Helbraun. “In New York, we have a summer that tends to get slower for certain sections of the city, but it's really not that terrible … In Miami, it's a whole other thing.”
“In New York, we have a summer that tends to get slower for certain sections of the city, but it's really not that terrible … In Miami, it's a whole other thing.”
Doya’s van den Blink explained that flexibility was a key aspect of the restaurant's success during the summer months. Doya has about 90 items on the menu at different prices, attracting a diverse crowd year-round, van den Blink said. If patrons want to sit at the bar and “just have a kebab for $20 and a cocktail,” they can limit their spending to about $40, he said. And he said that’s important to drawing in locals to support the business.
“Restaurants are high, fixed-cost capacity constrained throughput businesses," van den Blink said. "Once you've paid to open the doors, your rent, your baseline staff and utilities, every additional guest who sits down orders and leaves happy contributes incremental profit,” he said.
Rather than focus on a limited number of expensive, high-margin items, restaurants can get more money from offering more options, he said: “It’s a volume group.”
The bottom line
Finding reliable workers is another big part of operating a successful restaurant and added eateries add to competition for employees.
Bendersky said "all the local restaurants are leaning on each other and the community for help” finding workers. The out-of-town operators don't have that network, he said.
The availability of good workers — or lack thereof — adds to the labor issue, with minimum wage rising across the country, Helbraun said. “The best people go work at the restaurants where they can consistently make money over the course of the year. So, if you’re having a slow time, you’re going to lose your best people,” Helbraun said, compounding the problems of a sluggish summer.
The recent turnover of Miami restaurants is indicative of wider issues facing the country as a whole, such as rising costs for workers and materials, added Helbraun.
What was once a "flimsy" 15% profit margin for restaurants has since shrunk to 10%, or even as low as 5%, Helbraun said. It just takes "one bad thing" and profits are gone, said Helbraun, leading restaurants to close.
“The whole industry is resetting," Helbraun concludes. "Particularly in Miami, but all over the country ... mom and pops are really struggling to make it.”