A restaurant with a four-decade legacy in Palm Beach could soon start serving lunch — with a slate of conditions from Town Hall on how that meal would be served.
Cafe L’Europe at 331 S. County Road may begin serving lunch in part of its dining room once its owners and the town settle on rules governing how the lunch service can operate. The Town Council conditionally approved the lunch-service measure at its most recent development-review meeting.
Council members seemed primarily concerned about whether the lunch service would add more traffic and complicate an already-difficult parking situation in one the town’s busiest commercial areas. The Midtown restaurant currently only serves dinner at its longtime location at 331 S. County Road, across from Memorial Park near Town Hall.
The restaurant must return to the council and offer a declaration of use agreement, which is essentially a contract between the town and the restaurant that holds the restaurant to certain promises about how it will function.
Cafe L’Europe shares its 23-space parking lot with two other tenants, Le Bazaar and Valley Bank, said James Murphy, assistant director of the Planning, Zoning and Building Department. The restaurant used to offer lunch but stopped at some point in its 46-year history, 31 years of which have been spent at its current location, he said.
When the restaurant was established, Palm Beach did not have the zoning rules in place that it does now — and that includes requirements for how much parking must be provided by a business, Murphy said during the April 15 council meeting.
Had Cafe L’Europe opened after the town enacted its current rules, it would need 65 parking spaces for its 175 seats, he said.
The new lunch service faces stiff opposition from a nearby resident, who hired West Palm Beach attorney John Eubanks to represent him, records show. The neighbor is the same person who objected to Cafe L’Europe’s outdoor patio seating, which was removed, said attorney Maura Ziska. She represents the restaurant and its owners Jennifer and Rocco Marcello, and their son Mark and daughter-in-law Emanuela.
Ziska said that when she called Eubanks, he told her that “the guy just doesn’t want to have any more traffic in the area. Well, guess what?” she said. “We’re in the middle of town. We have traffic.”
Much of the lunchtime traffic is expected come from people who walk from other businesses, she said.
The proposal does not meet the town’s code, and should do so before it can move forward, Eubanks countered. There already are issues with parking in the lot, which serves not just the three tenants but a fourth — the nearby Salon Margrit, he said.
Ziska said the parking lot will stop leasing spaces to Salon Margrit’s valet service if the lunch service is allowed.
Among the proposed conditions that will be reviewed when the planned declaration of use returns to the council:
The vote to approve was 3-2 with council members Bridget Moran and Nicki McDonald dissenting.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Iconic Palm Beach restaurant may serve lunch again — with new rules
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Post
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