Damaged Mai-Kai Restaurant is for sale: ‘Everything is on the table’

Three months after water damage forced the iconic Mai-Kai Restaurant and Polynesian Show to close for extensive repairs, its longtime owners are putting the 64-year-old tiki time capsule and its land up for sale.

A business broker representing the Mai-Kai’s owners told the South Florida Sun Sentinel Thursday that soaring renovation costs spurred the decision to seek a buyer. The family-owned Oakland Park restaurant shut down Oct. 25 after tropical-storm flooding and a busted sprinkler pipe in the kitchen ripped a pickup truck-size hole in the roof and stuck the family with costly bills.

“Everything is on the table,” says Andy Cagnetta, CEO of Transworld Business Advisors, a Plantation-based brokerage. “Right now there’s extensive damage, so they can’t flip a switch and reopen it tomorrow. Whatever the buyer decides, the family wants to stay involved in the Mai-Kai.”

And by “everything,” Cagnetta says, Mai-Kai’s owners mean everything, from demolishing the aging landmark to rebuilding it somewhere else in South Florida. “The 2.69-acre property can remain as is, or can be redeveloped into apartments or a mixed-use development, which could include a renovated restaurant,” according to a statement. “The Mai-Kai’s ownership is open to working with the buyer on reopening the restaurant — currently closed for necessary renovations — or opening an offshoot in a new location, complete with the registered trademarks for its famed cocktails.”

Attempts to reach the Mai-Kai owners for comment Thursday morning were unsuccessful.

Mai-Kai’s owners didn’t list an asking price for the 26,000-square-foot restaurant or its 2.69 acres of land because owners have yet to tally the full scale of water damage, adds Peter Berg, who is handling the sale for Transworld. He’s begun speaking with possible investors but no serious offers have been made, Berg says.

Property records show the Mai-Kai building is worth at least $3.97 million while the land – which includes a rear, 150-space parking lot – is valued at $570,000.

Mai-Kai employee Kern Mattei told the Sun Sentinel in December that the entire roof must be replaced, along with fixing support walls, demolishing and rebuilding the kitchen, and replacing aging, flood-damaged equipment. Money from a flood insurance claim, filed in early November, came “woefully short” of repair costs, he said.

“They discovered that, when you work on renovations in one part of the 60-year-old building, you have to bring the entire building up to code,” Berg says. “It’s a daunting task. You can’t just patch the roof and you’re good to go.”

Oakland Park records show the Mai-Kai filed a permit to demolish its kitchen on Dec. 9, a job it estimates would cost nearly $28,000. The city rejected it on Dec. 14 because the Mai-Kai first needed to file separate electrical and mechanical permits. Owners have yet to re-file permits. At the time, there were no plans to update the Mai-Kai’s 600-seat dining room, its Molokai Bar and lush sprawl of tropical gardens, which all escaped flood damage.

“Once you exceed a certain level of damage, there are life-safety issues,” Stephanie Toothaker, a Fort Lauderdale attorney for the owners, said in December.

Tiare Thornton Bugarin, granddaughter of Mai-Kai co-founder Jack Thornton, said in a statement that any new buyer should revive the historic building with help from the Mai-Kai’s family.

“A descendant of the Mai-Kai’s founders has always been involved,” Bugarin says. “We welcome the opportunity to lend our expertise and play a role in the Mai-Kai’s future.”

It’s unclear how the Mai-Kai’s historical status — the restaurant was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014 – could affect the demolition of the restaurant. Berg says buyers must “do their homework” before bidding on the restaurant.

“It’s not something you can just bulldoze away and put up some apartments,” Berg says. “It’s a destination. It has intellectual property and history and goodwill. The wish is for the Mai-Kai to go back to what it was.”

Brothers and tikiholics Bob and Jack Thornton opened the Mai-Kai on Dec. 26, 1956, on a then-desolate stretch of Federal Highway for $300,000, said to be the most expensive restaurant built that year. An intoxicating hub for Rum Runners, Mai Tais and other tropical kitsch in a glass, the Mai-Kai’s ability to draw levelheaded folks under its tipsy spell has only grown stronger over the decades.

The restaurant is really a campus, with its rummy, ship-shaped Molokai Bar, gift shop and a winding, exotic garden adorned with tiki torches and wood-carved idols. But its main attraction had been the nightly Polynesian shows in the dining room, where saronged women served pupu platters while a symphony of fire-breathing dancers performed onstage.

This is a developing story. Check back for more information.

Phillip Valys can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @philvalys.

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