It was quite an acquisition and a move to upgrade its cafe offerings when Lombardi’s, the Winter Park seafood monger, announced in September that it had hired Austin Boyd to revamp its onsite prepared food selections and Yoshi Pintar to oversee a new sushi bar.
Now, both have left, Pintar to a new position with a hotel and Boyd to Seito Sushi Sand Lake, according to Mike Lombardi. “Both partings were amicable and I wish both of them nothing but the best as dining increases as the Covid crisis minimizes.”
Lombardi said his Fairbanks Avenue fish market will continue to offer sushi and he’ll implement a new menu soon.
Boyd had found his way to Lombardi’s when the Good Salt Restaurant Group, whose portfolio includes Seito Sushi Baldwin Park, was restructured and his position was eliminated. Seito Sushi Sand Lake is not listed as one of Good Salt’s restaurants on its website. So his moving there is, what, just an awkward coincidence?
- Gordon Ramsay is apparently opening a restaurant specializing in fish and chips. It’s called Fish & Chips and will be located at Icon Park, according to Orlando Business Journal. I’m sure there will soon be notices that the restaurant will be hiring staff who don’t mind being belittled and harangued.
- This seems to be a good time to mention that London House is up and running in the former Urbain 40 space at Dellagio Town Center. It’s a private club. Excuse me…it’s an ultra private club. What does that mean? I don’t know but I’m sure I could not qualify for membership.
- Do you remember what first occupied the London House/Urbain 40 space? Seems such a long time ago but it was only a dozen years ago that Cantina Laredo was there.
- Portillo’s, the Chicago based hot dogger and beef sandwich maker whose coming to Orlando has been foretold, has postponed the opening indefinitely.
- Shake Shack is shape shifting its restaurants and will begin testing drive-through service. Its first will be in Orlando at Vineland Pointe later in the year. The change is an attempt to address the way consumers now consume because of the pandemic.
- H Mart, a gigantic Korean-American supermarket chain based in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, will open a store in the Westland Terrace Plaza on West Colonial Drive in Orlando later this year in a former SuperTarget store. When you consider that SuperTargets contain a full-size grocery store and a complete department store, you can get an idea of how massive the H Mart will be.
And speaking of supermarkets, Post Grape Nuts, which contain neither grapes nor nuts, are back on grocery shelves following an inexplicable shortage last year. The cereal producer blamed the coronavirus and production issues. Grape Nuts are a much maligned pebble-like (in both size and consistency) cereal. If you wonder where I stand on the issue, all you need to know is the box pictured above is from my own pantry. And no, you mayn’t have any.
