A little over four months after debuting to a veritable tidal wave of hype, Delray’s Atlantic Ocean Club has sunk like rock, to be replaced sometime in May by The Pop-Up, a pop-up eatery from former Vic & Angelo’s chef Glen Manfra.
The restaurant-slash-niteclub was supposed to bring a little SoBe glitz and glamour to restaurant-rich Atlantic Avenue. Instead it was a primer on how not to run a restaurant, from the almost immediate defection of opening chef Jamie De Rosa to a reported wholesale management turnover to press releases issued and then retracted the next day to word of mouth about the food that wasn’t exactly positive.
In its guise as The Pop-Up, the restaurant will focus on “downright good foodâ€â€”always a smart idea—which basically means a limited menu of all the usual Italian culinary suspects, from caprese salad and fried calamari to lobster ravioli and linguine with clam sauce to a roster of meat, poultry and seafood entrees.
Along with the new chef, menu and concept come a brand-new staff and management team, which considering how well the old ones did is probably a pretty smart idea too.
Right now, The Pop-Up is projected to have only a four-month lifespan, though if it takes off its stay could be made permanent. That could be a big if, since going head to Italian head with Vic & Angelo’s across the street is the kind of bet I wouldn’t lay a whole of money on.
