It's an interesting phenomenon
It seems that the trick is to get them to come back on a regular basis. They seemed to enjoy the sales at the stores, they had lots of meals at local restaurants and they hung out at the bars and had coffee, and gelato, and just about everything the Grove has to offer.
Today, Monday is the final day of the arts festivals, so come on out and enjoy and hopefully you'll come back next weekend to enjoy a quieter Grove.
posted by Tom Falco at 5:00 AM
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6 Comments:
there is plenty of parking in the Grove. It's just that most don't want to pay $9, or whatever the latest going rate is, to park in the big parking lots by Cocowalk and Mayfair.
It's not a phenomenon. Without the arts festival the grove simply doesn't have enough to offer to warrant the cost of parking let alone to complete with other destinations like Lincoln Road or Miracle Mile. I lived in the grove for 10 years until just recently. And, in those 10 years i bet we shooed or had dinner in the grove no more than 4 or 5 times per year. And, we ate out at least 2-3 times per week.
I live in the Grove, we eat out 4-5 times a week, 90% of the time at a local restaurant. It's a great place to hang out, don't know why more people don't appreciate it.
Let's stop making the parking the big issue. For people living around Coconut Grove, it certainly isn't as the neighborhood - while it could certainly use improvements in terms of pedestrian and bicycle safety - is easy enough to navigate without a car.
The second portion is of course that the Grove suffers from good stores and restaurants not being able to afford the rents (think Florida Running Company, think restaurants that falter after short periods of time). The Grove is a good place, but it seems at least that tenants that would make the Grove attractive can't afford what appears to be absurdly high rents.
Because always going to the same place would be BORING. And now, there are many, many other places for Miami-Dade County residents to go. There are 26 municipalities all creating little downtown areas to attract shoppers and diners. I leave the Grove all the time to eat out. Why? Mostly because the best restaurants in Miami are NOT in the Grove. If the Grove was a hot spot, they would open here. But they don't. They are on the Beach, in Wynwood and Design District, in the Gables, even in South Miami. How many times can you eat the same-old, same-old at Greenstreets? The overpriced food sucks there. The best place we have, that's innovative and successful, is LoKal. Everything else is old and boring.
Agreed with anon at 11:41 am. But I suggest it would be foolish for the Grove to try to compete with those "hipper" areas of town. The Grove should decide how to distinguish itself in a way that carves out an underserved portion of the regional destination market.
The Grove keeps reverting to something I call "Key West Lite" (which the ridiculous "Nearby Republic" campaign brings to mind). That seems like a tired idea to me.
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