VERO BEACH — The heat of August has apparently sent two downtown restaurant owners out of the proverbial kitchen. Bodega Blue has been sold, and the Greenhouse Café has shut down, with the space going to a new restaurateur just in the last two weeks.
For Lynne Persinger, the change has been a long time coming. The blues bar that features artisanal cheeses and microbrew beers on its menu has been on the market for several years, and a deal was nearly finalized earlier this summer, only to fall through at the last minute.
That left it available for two relative newcomers to the area: Zandra Simm and Peter Beringer, who intend to keep the successful cafe more or less intact.
Neither has restaurant experience.
Simm, who worked in the airline industry and then in interior design in Miami before moving to Vero four years ago, was briefly the part-owner of a Vero seafood store, She Sells, He Shells, before a falling out with her partner caused her to pull out of the operation, she said.
Beringer, her romantic interest as well as new business partner, is retired and moved to Vero a year ago from Port St. Lucie.
Beringer had previously lived in Norway.
A block away, the Greenhouse Café, opened less than two years ago by former print shop owner Olske Forbes, has been closed and the space leased to Chris Bireley.
A well-traveled and well-trained chef, the Vero native was chef at what was once one of Vero’s top restaurants, Ellie’s, which closed after the 2004 hurricanes.
Both Bireley and Simm say their new restaurants will be closed during September for renovation.
Bireley, the son of the owners of the Beach Shop on Ocean Drive and Miracle Mile, will reopen the restaurant as the Osceola Bistro.
“Vero Beach being as conservative as it is, I felt like that is a conservative name.”
Osceola was the name of a Seminole warrior. An accomplished chef who has trained under two celebrity chefs — Michael Chiarello and Tom Colichio — Bireley was working for Kiawah Development Partners at the Doonbeg Golf Resort in County Clare, Ireland, as well as at Christophe Harbour in St. Kitts. He returned to Vero a year ago.
“It’s a lifelong dream finally coming true,” says Bireley. “I’m not going after the fine dining crowd. I’m going after everyone,” he says.
Beyond that broad parameter, Bireley has yet to define Osceola’s offerings. He hopes to have a menu completed within two weeks.
“I’ve focused all my energy on the closing and doing all the business side of things. We’ve just decided on a name three or four days ago.”
In choosing the name Osceola Bistro, he conferred with his longtime friend Kevin O’Dare, whose organic farm shares the name “Osceola.”
“Kevin and I go back to early childhood when he owned the Sunspot on the beach in the early ‘80s. I can’t wait to see his lettuces again in about four weeks.”
Another close friend, Jamie Whetstone, whom he met while working at the renowned Mustards Grill in Yountville, in the Napa Valley, will also leave his mark on the new bistro.
Whetstone, now a winemaker, will supply Bireley with wines including a pinot noir Bireley calls “fabulous.”
Meanwhile, Bireley is getting advice in marketing his restaurant from his new love, Charlotte Lombard, tourism coordinator for St. Lucie County, whom he came to know by happenstance – she rented his Vero condo while he was away in Ireland.
Bireley’s grandparents built the Petite Shop in Sexton Plaza in 1952, when they moved up from Fort Lauderdale, after signing a lease with Waldo Sexton on a napkin, Bireley says.
Bireley’s father, Richard, passed away seven years ago; the anniversary of his death was almost to the day of Bireley’s closing on his first restaurant.
“I got my entrepreneurial spirit from my father,” he says.
His mother Martha Bireley, who goes by Marty, still works at the Beach Shop, though Chris’ brother Richard has taken over the heavy lifting at both stores. “We’re slowly getting my mom to retire,” Chris says.
Early in his career, Bireley opened the famed Blossom restaurant in Charleston.
“I’m enthralled by this space,” Bireley says. “I’ve always kept a close ear to the ground since Day One when Olske opened this place.”
He is “enthralled” by the space, he says, one of the very few structures in Vero to maintain an aura from another era. “This is what the rest of the United States sees every day.”
Olske Forbes has no plans to open a restaurant again, she says. She recently sold the adjacent family printing business, Ironside Press, to her son, Beau Forbes.
While she continues in the role of landlord as owner of Osceola’s building, her only ambition beyond that is to “work in my garden and get to know my grandson,” she says.
Meanwhile, the creator of Bodega Blue, Lynne Persinger, intends to take it easy. She began Bodega Blue as an artisanal American cheese shop, opening just as the dual hurricanes hit Vero Beach in 2004.
Her café, along with the tea shop Tea and Chi, marked the start of a turnaround in the Vero downtown.
Last week, she offered training to the new owners in her innovative cheese-based menu.
The new owners say they intend to be “consistently open” more hours, most likely from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and they are considering opening for breakfast.
“Definitely at least five days a week,” Simm says.
