Less than three months after it opened in Boca’s Royal Palm Place, partners Dennis Max and Fred Stampone have sold their interest in The Mexican to the remaining partner, Mitch Kaminski, and are no longer involved with the restaurant.“At the end of the day it was not a good marriage,” Max said of the partnership. “We had completely different philosophies.”
What that means is that Max’s vision of the restaurant—serving “the highest quality, fresh and authentic Mexican street food focusing on local, sustainable ingredients,” according to the pre-opening press release—wasn’t shared by Kaminski and other unnamed investors.
What that means for The Mexican is quite likely less distinctive fare, more in line with that served at the bazillion other Mexican joints in the area, and a greater emphasis on the bar. Max said the menu has already been changed and recipes have been altered.
What this doesn’t mean is that Max is letting any cilantro grow under his feet. He’s working on a new project—two of them, actually—which I’ll tell you about in a coming blog post.
For now, though, it’s too bad Max’s Mexican experiment ended so soon, not that I’m really surprised. Mexican cuisine (Chinese too, for that matter) is still seen in most of this country as cheap, indifferently prepared filler; asking people to pay more for more-expensive, higher-quality ingredients is a tough sell when they can get a taco for a couple of bucks at their local Mexican chain restaurant.
One day someone may be able to make a go of it. . . probably when pigs playing bagpipes start making enchiladas. Sigh.
