LAKE WORTH BEACH — Closed since 2018, the former Blue Front Bar and Grill building will reopen by Labor Day weekend as a movie-themed Mexican restaurant, its owner says, perhaps with a menu item inspired by the biggest film ever shot in town.
Blue Front’s building will become home to RuRu’s Tacos & Tequila, opening in July at earliest, or by Sept. 5 at latest, owner Martin Sprock said in mid-May. Sprock owns the North Carolina-based RuRu’s chain restaurant and co-founded Moe’s Southwest Grill.
Sprock paid $1.6 million in 2022 for the 1940s Art Deco-style building, hoping to open a RuRu’s in 2023. But from the outside, the only major change since then has been the paint job, with a creamy beige replacing the building’s signature sky blue-and-white color scheme. Though Blue Front remains closed, the name remains prominently above the door for all those passing by 1132 North Dixie Highway.
The transformation has slogged through years of delay. “Permitting has not been easy,” Sprock said. “Some of it may be our fault. But we’ve got experienced contractors ready to tear their hair out.” While Mayor Betty Resch said “we do need to improve” on government approval of property projects, she said the city is working on streamlining such processes to be friendlier to business.
Once it opens, RuRu’s will serve dishes with playful movie-themed names such as a crispy tofu bowl called You Got No Legs Lt. Dan!, referencing the film “Forrest Gump.”
When Sprock learned that much of “Body Heat,” 1981’s steamy murder mystery starring Kathleen Turner and William Hurt, was filmed in Lake Worth Beach, he was intrigued. Intrigued enough to make a menu mention? “I will get my investigative team on it and watch it to find a funny line or something there’s a ‘Body Heat’ menu item.”
Before it closed, Blue Front barbecue had operated out of the building since 2014. But business slowed to a halt, forcing then-owner John Paladino to close on July 4, 2018. He blamed it on the rain. Storms and showers effectively put the outdoor garden off limits, he said at the time.
Before that, it was Jetsetter Lounge — opened in 2006 and sporting a mid-20th Century Space Age motif, complete with Formica, plastic chairs in pale lavender, pink and green and turquoise. From the 1940s into the 1990s, it was Kristine’s Restaurant.
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This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New Mexican restaurant nears opening just south of West Palm Beach
Reporting by Chris Persaud, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Chris Persaud, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
