BREAKFAST CLUB
The Restaurant People, the hospitality group behind YOLO and Tarpon River Brewing, is joining the breakfast club. Java & Jam, their new all-day place for morning mainstays, opened in Las Olas in time for spring breakers seeking healthy meets hearty meals before or after hitting the beach. The concept updates Fort Lauderdale’s prolific diner scene with a more sophisticated approach that should go over well for breakfast meetings and other business needs that require a cup of coffee and bite to eat. Décor features subway tile, red leather booths and celebrity portraits to entertain diners as they down pancakes and omelets while sipping coffee from beans roasted at nearby Well’s Coffee Company. The lunch menu also offers a little of everything from a turkey club to a tuna poke bowl.
301 Las Olas Boulevard; 954.353.3250; Click here
BIG SCORE
New World Symphony’s 31st annual gala at its Frank Gehry-designed New World Center on March 2 is geared to a much broader audience than classical music lovers. Movie buffs to little kids will recognize most of the tunes played during the magical evening’s concert portion. Legendary Hollywood composer John Williams is coming to town to conduct some of his most iconic scores for films including Star Wars, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Harry Potter and Jurassic Park. As a twist from previous fundraisers, the concert is open to everyone through the gala’s first-ever Wallcast. Attendees simply have to find a space in the SoundScape Park, so arrive early. Michael Tilson Thomas will also conduct, followed by dinner and dancing to Michael Andrew & the Atomic Big Band.
500 17th Street; 305.902.6856; Click here
SUPREME SADDLE
As part of the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Hermès invited several of its partner riders including Olympian Anne Kursinski, Nick Dello Joio and Lucy Deslauriers to preview its new, feather-light Vivace saddle for show jumping. Kursinski hosted a clinic and luncheon at Fairlane Farm, where she resides in season, in honor of the house’s latest item for the horsey set here. It’s an even more important addition to the equestrian collection, being master saddler Laurent Goblet’s last saddle before he retires this year. Watch these top riders compete during WEF through March 31, especially at Saturday Night Lights Grand Prix’s family-friendly, show jumping events at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center. Stick around for Sunday polo matches, too, at International Polo Club Palm Beach.
WHITMAN’S WORLD
Before he passed away at the age of 98 in 2017, Bal Harbour Shops developer Stanley Whitman sat down to tell his life story to architecture writer Alastair Gordon. Their many sessions, often over lunch at Carpaccio or Makoto, resulted in much more than his biography. Published by Rizzoli, “Theater of Shopping: The Story of Stanley Whitman’s Bal Harbour Shops” also weaves in how his Midwestern family pioneered Miami Beach, a retail history timeline and his never-ending quest to create the most successful shopping center on earth. His son Randy, grandson Matthew Whitman Lazenby, Gordon, and Barbara DeVries, who also contributed to the book, celebrate its debut with a talk moderated by Books & Books founder Mitchell Kaplan in the Shops’ center courtyard on March 6 at 6:30 p.m.
9700 Collins Avenue; Click here
We’ll see you next week with even more of South Florida’s places to go!