There may at last be brighter days ahead for Chop House 88, which at times served good steaks but never could overcome the financial baggage of its now imprisoned former owner Mark Terheggen.
Management of the restaurant was taken over earlier this week by Roger Lenzi, owner of highly regarded Vero restaurants Avanzare and Bijou.
“We’re getting everything ordered in, and we will be open for dinner tomorrow,” Lenzi said on Monday. “It will still be basically a steakhouse, but we’re going to be adding a lot of seafood. We’re also going to have a lot of new appetizers. Steakhouses should have good apps.”
Chop House 88 began life a few years ago on South Beach as M.T.’s Chop House, named after Terheggen.
That restaurant ran into financial difficulties and filed bankruptcy in 2012, but Terheggen reemerged a short time later with new backers and opened Chop House 88 in Vero’s downtown.
But Chop House 88 never really replicated the early buzz of the old M.T.’s, and this past summer, Terheggen was sentenced to four years in prison on charges stemming from a contracting business he operated following the 2004 hurricanes.
Lenzi, who said he now has become managing partner of Chop House 88, is moving a chef, Don Benson, from Bijou to the Chop House, and one of the waiters from Avanzare will manage the front of the house.