He was interviewed by Lifestyle Group Editor-in-Chief Kevin Gale at the system’s headquarters in Miami. The following Q&A was edited for brevity and clarity.

So, we’re in an elevator and I ask you to tell me why to entrust my child to Nicklaus Children’s Health System. How do you quickly win me over?

I start by saying, we’re the first and only specially licensed children’s hospital in South Florida. Everything we do is about kids – all the way from the equipment, the facilities, the people, everyone is subspecialty trained in pediatrics and it makes a difference. I would bring my kids here and grandkids here. I believe in the place that much.

With approximately 850 attending physicians, including more than 500 pediatric subspecialists, what does that say about the scope and quality of care that you are able to offer?

We’re in the people business and what we do is take care of kids. We do that with great people, great nurses, great doctors, and so really, it’s size and scope and also the quality of what we do. We can do everything from the bumps and bruises and sniffles all the way to the most complex surgeries—heart surgeries, cancer surgery and everything in between. Our size and scope matter, but it’s also about the quality. We are all the way from Homestead to up to Jupiter and all the way over to Naples. That breadth and depth of services that we offer really is due because of our size.

So, it sounds like they sort of feed off of each other. You get to a critical mass and you can financially afford to have more specialists in different areas.

Yes, and doing a lot of these complex surgeries is a big difference than if you only do a few per year.

Why would you recommend taking your child to a children’s hospital as opposed to a more general hospital that also treats adults?

The easiest way I can think about it is kids are not small adults. They’re kids for a reason. A  children’s hospital has everything that you need to take care of kids and only kids—all the way from the low dose x-ray machines, to special facilities, the MRIs and the invasive procedure areas, but it’s also around the people. All of our physicians are pediatric subspecialty trained. Our nurses go back to school and have extensive work in pediatrics. Everything from facilities to equipment to people, it’s all about kids.

Tell our readers about the scope of locations and services that the Nicklaus system offers.

We have over 30 different locations in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Broward and Collier counties. We see kids from every county in the state, even outside of our geographic region. It’s really around being where the kids are. Care can be local. No kid should have to leave their community for the majority of the care. When they need us for the high-end, super sub-specialized stuff, that’s why we’re here in Miami-Dade, but our geography and our reach is important to be where the kids are.

Has this geographic spread been more of a recent phenomenon or has this happened over quite a period of time?

It’s been probably a couple of decades. We opened our Nicklaus Children’s Dan Marino Outpatient Center in Weston about 25 year ago. So, we’ve had a geographic presence for a long time. We’ve seen more in the last couple of years as we’ve expanded services, particularly over to the west coast and up into Palm Beach County.

What’s ahead in terms of locations and new services?

We’re going to continue to expand in all four counties that we provide services in. We’re going to see some intentional growth in those areas, specifically around the high end, high acuity complex care.

What are the advantages to having your child see a primary care physician who’s part of your network versus one who may not have an affiliation with a children’s hospital at all?

Once you get into the network at Nicklaus Children’s, all of that information is shared. Everybody is rowing in the same direction for taking care of kids. We believe the right care at the right place at the right time is important. So, primary care and our community physicians are truly part of that complex delivery of care model. But, once you get in, things are seamless.

Are your primary care physicians pretty much throughout the three-county area?

Yes, across all three counties there’s a heavy population of primary care and they are great community partners with us.

Talk about Jack Nicklaus, the golfer, and his wife, Barbara, and their relationship with the hospital.

Every time I think about Jack and Barbara, I get a smile on my face. As you can see, they are two champions for children’s healthcare, for pediatric healthcare. They believe in the mission, they believe in taking care of kids. They were introduced to the hospital probably eight or 10 years ago and are truly inspirational for people across the country. It started with a pretty significant gift, but it goes beyond that. It goes around their championing pediatric healthcare across the country. Barbara is a wonderful, wonderful person. She talks about our physicians being angels and Jack, he’ll talk about golf and pediatric healthcare and he’ll say, taking care of kids and doing what we do is much more rewarding than any four-foot putt that he ever did.

It seems like hospitals are getting squeezed between rising costs and the need to take care of patients versus reimbursement rates. Where are we now and what could make things better?

Just like any other industry, any other hospital currently, reimbursements and rising costs, inflation, that’s part of what we have to deal with. Dealing with that day in, day out, year in, year out is just something that we do like everybody else. What we want to do, though, is focus on delivering care. We take any child regardless of the ability to pay. While it’s important and we need to keep our eyes around the fundamentals and operational efficiencies, it’s much more important to make sure that we do high quality care and take care of every kid that comes through our doors.

Talk about the importance of people in the community supporting you in terms of donations. Do you have a foundation for people to contribute?

We have a separate foundation, the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Foundation –(give.nicklauschildrens.org). We’ve had successful years over the last couple of years around capital campaigns, capital contributions, but it’s also more than just the money. It’s around the community involvement, the community seeing the benefit of a freestanding children’s hospital, and then the philanthropy follows. We’ve seen a lot of interaction, a lot of commitment by the communities, more donors than we’ve ever had.

Nicklaus does very well in a lot of the US News and World Report rankings, but none of the children’s hospitals in Florida were ranked in the top three in the southeast. Is that something you aspire to and what would it take to get there?

I like to look at what’s behind those rankings. What are those characteristics of those top children’s hospitals? That’s really what we’re chasing. You think about the breadth and depth of programs and services that some of the top five children’s hospitals have across the country. That’s what we’re chasing. Across all of the different programs and services from cancer to orthopedics, we do a lot of the same things as those top ranked children’s hospitals do. Of course, we’d like to see that ranking rise, but it’s also around what’s behind it.

You went right into the healthcare field in 1992 as a management engineer at the Ohio State University Medical Center when you were apparently getting your bachelor’s degree at the university. Was that a conscious decision to get in the healthcare field or was it something you just sort of fell into and built a career on?

I wish I had the sexy answer to this one, but it was truly by accident. It was a summer job and it turned into something that I stayed on after the summer and then I just really got the healthcare bug.

How would you describe your career progression?

There’s a lot around mentorship and people that I’ve been able to look up to and that has helped me along the way. I do believe that there’s this balance between operations and finance and strategy. So, when you look back at my career, I started in operations, did a lot of day-to-day running of the business, but then got exposed to the finance side. I think some of the best things that I can help bring to the table is bringing those two together. Operations can’t survive without finance and finance can’t run the business. I like bringing those two together along with strategy and then physician relationships and growth.

What drew you to Nicklaus as CFO in 2018?

I’ve worked at a couple children’s hospitals in the past, one in Memphis and one in Cleveland, and then got in the adult world. I wanted to get back in pediatric healthcare. As I was looking in the 2017-2018 time period, I was very conscious about looking for a freestanding children’s hospital.

What was it like making the transition to president and CEO in 2019?

What do they say? Don’t be afraid to take that leap of faith or something along those lines. It’s ironic when you look back, you realize what you didn’t know. When you look at it from a finance perspective, you have a certain lens. When you look at it from the president/CEO perspective, you have a different lens. Bringing those two together was the best thing that ever happened to me. Part of it is because I’m able to do the things that I love. I love finance, I love operations obviously, but as CEO, being able to bring those two together is wonderful and you really do that through hiring great people. In my role now, I am able to do that much more so than in my prior roles.

How did the organization get through the challenges of the pandemic and is it still having a long tail impact?

When you look back, who could have predicted the pandemic then? Who could have predicted how long and the impact it had? I remember sitting in the office, we were kind of trying to plan for this, and we all thought it was going to be some small event, short period. Who knew? And then we woke up and it was, what, two years later? The pandemic for us, really brought people together. There was a common purpose. It was scary back then. Very scary, very scary, especially at the beginning. But, because we had great people and great purpose, we’re able to do that. Unlike the adult side, it had a different impact on kids. Adult hospitals were full, pediatric hospitals were basically empty overnight. So, our ability to respond to that and do the things that we needed to was huge.

I remember sitting, probably in this room, and thinking about the impact of a pandemic. Once you look at it 50 years down the road, we’re going to view it as having the same impact as other big events in history, the Great Depression, the plague, all of those things that were a century or two ago. I believe the pandemic has changed us fundamentally as a country, as a world, and in healthcare. Telehealth is now present. Things that work remotely are now present. None of that would’ve happened without an external event like the pandemic.

What other major challenges, if any, have you had since becoming CEO and how are you addressing them?

We see some of the same challenges everybody else sees: rising costs, reimbursements, talent, and we really focus on those at the core every day, focus on the fundamentals. One of the things that we did five or six years ago was kind of reintroduce this idea of focusing on the fundamentals. We have to do things right every single day, every single week, every single month, every single year. You look at access and how we deliver services—are we hitting on all cylinders? One of our biggest things that we had to respond to over the last two to three years is responding to growth. We have grown significantly over the last couple years, and so scaling is important, hiring people in the right places is important, and really managing that growth has been something that we’ve been focused on.

Talk a little bit about your family, any hobbies, how you try to balance work and personal time.

Like for most executives, it’s important to make sure that there is a balance. I have a wonderful family. I married my high school sweetheart, Lisa. We’ve been married for 31 years this year. Super happy about that. That’s really what drives me. I have two wonderful kids, Cody and Abbe, who are now adults and two wonderful grandchildren. What I tell folks is what we do here is super important, not just because of the kids that walk through our doors, but because our kids need these places too. My daughter actually had to go to a  children’s hospital at some point early in her life, and it was different. I never missed one of my kids’ events, whether it was a baseball game, volleyball game, golf match, and that was because that happened when I was growing up. My mom never missed a thing. I do believe we have to make sure we make that a priority. What we do is super important, and I love what I do, but I also love being a husband and a father and a grandfather too.

What fields are your children in?

My son is super successful. He works in a machine shop in Youngstown, Ohio. My daughter just entered healthcare.

What kind of degree is she getting?

She has an undergrad in business and just finished with the MBA healthcare focus.

Sounds a little like she could follow dad’s footsteps there. Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you would like to share?

I really believe that you have to do what you love and that makes things so much easier all the way around from coming into work, staying late, whatever it is. But also from a personal perspective, it makes you a much happier person. And so doing what you love and being happy is absolutely an important part of what we all do. And there’s nothing I’d rather be doing than taking care of kids and running Nicklaus.

The post Matthew Love: Behind the Growth of Nicklaus Children’s Health System appeared first on Lifestyle Media Group.

That subway car made its thunderous debut during Miami Art Week in December. It was a private party affair with a performance by mega-DJ Fatboy Slim, with notable tastemakers and featured artists in attendance like Greg Mike, Shok1 and Mojo. The artistic theme for Wynwood Walls ’24 was “Power of Purpose.” And, in a recent chat with SFBW, it’s clear Goldman Srebnick has found an incredible purpose for herself in the Miami art realm.

“I believe we all should be ambassadors for the cities where we live and the cities that we love,” she says. “And for me, that’s Miami. I’ve loved this city since I was a teenager and I believe in this city. As far as the arts are concerned, I think Art Basel was incredibly catalytic in bringing the attention of the arts world here, and every year we just continue to grow.”

Goldman Srebnick is the daughter of the late developer and restaurateur Tony Goldman. Under the Goldman Properties name, he is widely credited for redeveloping South Beach and helping preserve its art deco icons starting in the mid-1980s. In the mid-2000s, he began purchasing and redeveloping property in Wynwood. Eventually, Goldman Srebnick joined the family business and was charged with opening a hotel at Collins Avenue and Eighth Street.

“My dad put me on that project, and it’s now called The Tony Hotel, named after my father,” she says. “I moved here to oversee that. I knew one person who lived here, just one friend, and I really started to make a life for myself here. And then, I met my husband and that solidified that this was where I wanted to be and the life that I wanted to live.”

As for her “aha” moment in which art became her passion, she credits her parents who admired and collected art themselves. She says artists were always around her New York City home growing up, be it painters, musicians, chefs or actors. “We were always surrounded by creative people because we just love the way they think. … It’s always so entrepreneurial and out of the box.”

Goldman Srebnick worked with her father for 15 years before his passing in 2012. Thereafter, she took over many of the day-to-day leadership responsibilities, including the curation of Wynwood Walls.

“I have to tell you, it really is a crowning jewel for us,” she says. “Not just to the neighborhood, but to our organization and to me personally. The beauty of what we’re doing here at Wynwood Walls is when we invite artists to come paint, they are bringing their gifts and their talents and their magic to the walls of our city. And then, they leave that here for us to enjoy. It’s not putting it in a tent and then packing it up and going home, really, it’s here to stay. And then, as you see the neighborhood of Wynwood continue to evolve, it’s going from a horizontal neighborhood to a vertical neighborhood, with art climbing the walls of eight-story buildings. And I mean, that’s just spectacular and beautiful.”

Beyond Wynwood Walls, Goldman Srebnick sparks art and activism in unexpected places. Fun fact: Her first project under the Goldman Global Arts umbrella was at Hard Rock Stadium, which in 2016 brought poppin’ murals from the London Police and Jen Stark to its walls.

She says her newest project involves curating the art and design of an entire cruise ship. Norwegian Cruise Line’s Aqua ship – with an ancient goddess artistic flair from artist Allison Hueman and a theme of “Where the Sky Meets the Sea” – will debut in 2025. Also, the Wynwood Walls Foundation is bringing art opportunities to local nonprofits, including art therapy at Lotus House Women’s Shelter and art programming to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“I’ve become so comfortable in what we do, and I feel like we have the ability to really fly,” she says. “I’ve taken my passion and turned it into a business. I like to believe that I’m a curator of culture by this point. … It’s all about improving the quality of life for other people. The world is a really tough place and certainly at the moment. If we can bring joy, inclusivity and beauty, that’s what I love to do and count me in.”

Photo credits: Nick Garcia

The post Jessica Goldman Srebnick: A Custodian of Art appeared first on Lifestyle Media Group.

“All these years, I kept thinking, I’m a kid without arms, but what can I be other than just a kid with no arms,” he says. “I wanted to make my family proud and show them what I’m capable of, be part of society, and have positive effects.” 

Karimi found his answer when he began swimming in the rivers close to his house in Kabul. It was there that he began to find peace and solace, a place where he could release the frustrations built up over years of bullying and struggles.

“There were a lot of dark moments I went through as a child,” he says. “I realized that water was the only thing that could really calm me down and relax. It’s not the end of the world, and it’s okay if you don’t have arms. I believe swimming saved my life and is keeping me alive. I had no other purpose in life.”

After spending countless hours honing his swimming ability in the rivers, Karimi took his talents to his brother’s pool, and his dedication to his craft soon led him to compete nationally in Afghanistan. As his innate talent grew, Karimi won his first gold medal in the country, and his life began to transform. 

“I always had to be very strong in everything and defend myself,” he says. “There’s been lots of suffering and lots of pain, but I never surrendered myself to life. I followed the swimming path, kept working hard, and ended up here. Life is not perfect and is full of risks, and this world will not show you mercy, but at the end of the day, whatever people go through, I say it’s worth it to keep working hard for your dreams and goals. If you don’t save yourself, no one will.”

Despite making his family proud with his swimming accomplishments, the conflict in Afghanistan took a toll on Karimi, who didn’t see much of a future in one of the poorest countries on Earth. He fled on foot and was able to trek through Iran and was smuggled into Turkey at the age of 16, where he stayed in refugee camps for four years. As word of his extraordinary swimming capabilities spread, the UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) relocated Karimi from the refugee camp to Portland, Oregon, where he began intensive training for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. He intended to compete in the 50-meter butterfly, 50-meter backstroke, and the 50- and 100-meter freestyle, but COVID forced the pools to close and cancel the games.

While undoubtedly disappointed, fate would intervene when he was contacted by Marty Hendrick and the Swim Fort Lauderdale Masters Swim Team, a local swim group with over 200 members. He was soon invited to relocate to Fort Lauderdale and has been training at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center ever since. 

Trading in the rivers of Kabul, Afghanistan for the multimillion-dollar Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center has been one of the many positives Karimi has experienced since becoming a Fort Lauderdale resident. His love for water has only grown here. After swimming practice, the 27-year-old regularly walks to the beach to connect with the resource that gives him life in more ways than one.

“I’m a water person,” Abbas Karimi says. “Water calms me down, and the best thing I love about the city is that it’s surrounded by water. The beach is so close, and I love everything about it here. I’m living in heaven; it’s a paradise for me.” 

After hearing of his profound mental and physical resilience, Visit Lauderdale, the destination marketing organization for Greater Fort Lauderdale, formed a new partnership with the Paralympic hopeful to serve as its latest ambassador.

“It’s one of the biggest things to happen to me in my swimming career,” Karimi says. “I never had that kind of partnership. After 12 years and lots of hard work, it’s happening. Living in Fort Lauderdale, it’s growing on me and being selected by the Visit Lauderdale team is a big honor for me and I will work so hard to make them proud and be the best ambassador and a good representative of the city.”

As an accessibility ambassador for Visit Lauderdale, Karimi will visit various places throughout Greater Fort Lauderdale and showcase their accessibility through various marketing campaigns.

“Inclusivity is an important part of our mission at Visit Lauderdale,” says Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of Visit Lauderdale. “We pride ourselves in making everyone feel welcomed with open arms in our destination. Our ambassador campaign with Abbas will hopefully inspire others to dream big and work hard towards their goals. Abbas will also help us show locals and visitors how accessible Greater Fort Lauderdale has become over the years.” 

Since his arrival in the U.S., Karimi has competed four times in the Para Swimming World Series and twice in the World Championships. He’s earned six international medals and won 25 medals from national events. In 2023, he made Team USA for the World Para Swimming Championships in Portugal. He recently qualified as part of the U.S. Paralympics Swim Team competing in late August. He practices six days a week with a strict diet and training regimen that features 2.5 miles of swimming each practice. 

He says, “If my story can motivate someone or give a little bit of hope to someone’s heart to help them keep going, it was worth it.”

For additional information on Abbas Karimi and his swimming career, visit www.abbas-karimi.com. To learn about Visit Lauderdale’s accessibility initiatives, visit www.visitlauderdale.com/accessibility/.

The post Abbas Karimi Turns Disability Into Strength appeared first on Lifestyle Media Group.

There’s another whole interesting backstory, though, before we get to his Fior Scotch brand.

Dominijanni was born to an Italian father and black mother and said he was a big nerd who liked cooking shows growing up in Queens. “When my friends were reading comic books, I was reading “The Iliad,” I was reading ‘The Odyssey.” … Hercules was my Superman; Achilles was my Batman when I was a kid because my mom had a classical education.”

His mom was a dance instructor, so he took ballet and tap dancing, but in his neighborhood doing that was a good way to get beaten up. Instead, he got into martial arts, which actually shares some techniques with dance. “It was my reason to be,” he says.

He was also captain of his high school track team and ran in college as well, capturing some school records along the way. “My buddies best described me as a nerd who can catch you and beat you up,” he says.

He became interested in the military just before college graduation and visited a Navy recruiter and talked about being a medic as an eventual pathway to medical school, but realized he didn’t like the idea of sitting around a hospital.

“I was like, no, I actually really do want to get dirty and have a gun and all that other great stuff,” he recalls.

As he walked out, another recruiter’s voice boomed out, “Do you think you have what it takes to be a Marine?” Dominijanni says he responded, “‘Do you know who I am? I’ve been training in kung fu since I was seven years old. I could beat you up right now.’ He completely read me as an alpha male and suckered me. So, I joined the Marine Corps.”

He was with the Corps on the push from Kuwait to Baghdad and was stationed in Camp Fallujah, which was the Wild West of Iraq, he says. Later, he lived off base in Fallujah and was a liaison, training the police in the region. He also spent a short time in Afghanistan.

While he was with the Marines, he entered some local cooking competitions in North Carolina, he says. “And probably the greatest thing that could ever happen to me in my life was I went up against Bobby Flay on ‘Throwdown with Bobby Flay,’ Season one, Episode five.”

The description for the episode says, “Eric Dominijanni, a.k.a. Captain D., is a proud Marine with a mission — to grill his award-winning steaks as a morale booster to his men. What nobody knows is that Bobby Flay will roll up and challenge him to a steak Throwdown.”

Dominijanni says, “Not only did I go up against a god, I won.”

The Food Network offered shows and Weber Grills wanted Dominijanni as a spokesman.

“But I can’t leave my Marines. I’m about to go to Iraq,” he recalls. “I’ve been training with these guys. Well, what kind of person would I be if I left? So, I wound up saying, ‘OK, I’m going to go to culinary school eventually.'”

After the Corps, he went to Johnson & Wales and wound up studying in Singapore and Thailand, his interest in Asian food inspired by his first girlfriend, who was Chinese. He planned to study in New Mexico, Cyprus and North Africa, but Covid hit and shattered his plans. After a prolonged wait, he decided to go to pursue a doctorate in education at the University of Miami.

But, there was this long-time interest in Scotch. It started when he went to a bar and asked for rum. The bartender told him it was a Scotch bar. “So, I was like, teach me. He said, ‘What?’ I pulled out my credit card, threw it on the table. I was like, ‘Teach me – just don’t rip me off. I don’t know anything about Scotch.’”

The bartender gave an introductory course on different types of Scotch.  Dominijanni got the bug and jumped right into it, building his own collection.

For someone who makes his own ice cream, sausage, salami and beer, it was inevitable that he was going to make his own Scotch blend, he says. He did the mixing himself at first and it was a hit at his dinner parties.

He thought about how his uncle Luciano had someone make wine for him and how his former colonel in the Corps did the same with cigars. A bell went off in his head and Dominijanni turned to a longtime friend from college, James Landis, whose family has been in the wine and spirits business for four generations.

Dominijanni gave him a bottle of his favorite homemade blend, but nothing happened but talk for a few months. Then, Dominijanni received three tasting containers. The second one seemed like a duplicate of his blend, made in Scotland.

At first, Dominijanni just got small batches for himself and his friends, who then urged him to start selling it.

Landis said he liked the Scotch enough to buy it himself. They went into business together, but they needed a name.

At first, Domijanni didn’t like Landis’ suggestion of “fior.” The word means flower in Italian—he wasn’t selling wine, after all—but Fior means “true” in Scottish Gaelic, with a connotation of pure and clean that Dominijanni embraced.

Domijanni’s buddies and former Marines in general supported his efforts by buying multiple bottles and cases, many paying a bit extra to get their names engraved.

Fior is available in New York, New Jersey, South Carolina and online, plus through some Scotch of the Month clubs. He expects Fior Scotch to be available in Florida soon at Total Wines & More. An easy way to get it is to go to www.fiorscotch.com where it sells for $41.99. Some of the proceeds benefit veterans’ causes.

Fior Scotch has already sold 5,000 cases, and Domijanni wants to hit 10,000 this year.

Domijanni says drinking Scotch is like an event, akin to relaxing with friends and smoking cigars. There is some truth to the stereotype that it’s enjoyed by older professional men, he says.

He like his Scotch straight up, but says it’s really up to the imbiber as to whether you add some water, put in an ice cube for just a bit to chill it or mix it in a drink. The Fior website has recipes.

What’s his advice to a novice Scotch drinker? “I would say the first thing you need to do is forget that it’s a drink. Remember that it’s an event to get your mind, your body, your soul into drinking a scotch—be surrounded by good friends and family. That’s it.”

The post Semper Fior appeared first on Lifestyle Media Group.

As Scherer celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Conrad & Scherer law firm, he has three of his children as members: Executive Partner John J. Scherer has been with the firm for 20 years and is also president and owner of Gulf Building. Last year, John was joined by Senior Partner William R. Scherer III, who returned from his own practice, and Partner Elizabeth Scherer, who finally joined the firm last year after handling over 75 cases as a prosecutor and gaining national attention as the judge who presided over the Parkland shooter trial.

Conrad Scherer is a firm with a bright future, but the paternal member shows no signs of slowing down.

The kids talk

Scherer says he was a normal dad who dressed nice and told them about law growing up. But he is also a bit of a prankster and has been an adrenaline junkie when it comes to motorcycles, jet skis, and ski boats.

“If you see him walking a little bit lopsided, it’s because he’s been in so many motorcycle accidents and had himself put back together so many times. He used to race them,” Elizabeth says. “He likes to go fast in everything he does.”

William III and a friend were sleeping the day after a 4th of July celebration when his dad threw firecrackers in their cabin bedroom to wake them up. Maybe that’s why young William got a break after he and Chris Conrad, one of Partner Rex Conrad’s sons, were spotted throwing rocks off the office building during their lunch break while working as runners at the firm over the summer.   

Partner Rex Conrad called young Bill into his office the next day and told him he had not decided if he would fire him since his father was out of town. His father later called and asked if he knew the song Up on the Roof before adding that he had just used up his free pass.

Elizabeth, the middle child, says, “Our dad is a great guy, he’s funny and he plays these kind of pranks–but there’s a line that you don’t cross, thank God. I think I was probably near the line a lot of times growing up and the only thing that kept me on the right side of the line was knowing that I would get in big, big trouble.”

William III, the oldest of the siblings, says their father became successful in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “I was born in 1969, so we had a modest house in The Landings in Fort Lauderdale growing up. We eventually moved to Rio Vista, and I lived there until I went to college in 1987.

He started performing in bands as a teenager. His parents booked time at New River Studios, and he recorded a single called “Engine No. 9.” Elizabeth says her brother is very talented and remembers dozens of teenage girls screaming when he did a gig on Las Olas Boulevard. The website for his Crosstown Chameleons band says of Scherer: “Dude can sing, write, play guitar and bass. And write a mean law brief. All at the same time.”

William III thought he might make a career in music in the 1990s when the Miami area had a more thriving indie scene, but it never quite came together. Fortunately, his father had a backup plan: “He encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do as long as I got a law degree.”

Elizabeth said a college English professor told her she was very talented and should become a teacher, but her father explained how teachers were overworked and underpaid.

She went to law school and had a revelation during a litigation class in her third year.

“I was better than all the guys. I got the best grade in the class, and I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie myself. I would just get this high coming out of doing a trial and I knew this is what I wanted to do,” she says.

She had planned to join her dad’s practice after law school but stuck with State Attorney Michael Satz after an internship.

“My dad said, that’ll be a great job. You can stay there for three years and then you can get a bunch of trials and then you can come work for me,” she recalls. She began working on violent crime cases, and Satz convinced her to stay for four more years.

Later on, he suggested she become a judge, and she did.

She had many big cases, but the Parkland shooter case towers above them: It was the most widely publicized, had the biggest crime scene, and had the biggest number of witnesses and victims, and it was topped by her former boss Satz being the lead prosecutor.

She had learned to emotionally desensitize herself from years of prosecution, including a case where a man set his wife on fire, but this was an even bigger challenge because her daughter was the same age as the young victims.

“Let’s say a father is talking about his son, who was the youngest of three children, how he was a mama’s boy, and how he was such a sweet kid and an old soul. You can’t ever think, oh my gosh, my daughter is that. … It’s hard enough to keep your cool, but if you for one minute cross that line and make it personal, you’ll lose it,” Scherer says. During the trial, “Everybody was crying. Big armed deputies who are macho men were crying, and I just felt, as a woman, you’re not going to see a male judge crying. So, I can’t cry.”

Elizabeth, who was under intense national scrutiny during the trial, knew that after the case, it would be time to move on.

William III worked for the firm as a lawyer for 20 years before leaving to build his own practice. Nine years later, he says he faced the choice of hiring another associate for his growing practice or rejoining his father’s firm.

Elizabeth said she would join the firm if he came back. “I said, because we’ll be a team, and it will be two against one because my dad can be difficult.”

Elizabeth says her older brother is brilliant and hard-working, but he always faces the challenge of people making assumptions because of his name. It was good for him to get out and build his own business, just like she built a career.

The last and youngest of the trio, John, was already at the firm. He got a degree in Construction Management at the University of Florida. After graduation, he started working as a project manager for a construction company. He spent much time looking at legal documents and thought maybe he should get a law degree like everyone else. He went to Nova Southeastern University Law School at night and kept working during the day for three years.

He became an associate attorney at the law firm but was also general counsel of Gulf Building. He eventually became president and CEO and bought Gulf in 2008. His expertise in construction and its legal aspects gives him a focus at the law firm. As an executive partner, he also handles many managerial duties, such as examining the overall business, hiring employees, and managing back-of-the-house operations.

Gulf Building is thriving with an impressive list of projects over the last 30 years and employs nearly 90 professionals.  Some recent projects include the YMCA on Sistrunk Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale and the Parker Theatre in Fort Lauderdale for Broward Performing Arts Center. Gulf is also currently building the new terminal at Key West International Airport among other projects.

The Scherer law firm is more than just a family affair, though, with 10 other attorneys.

Among them is partner Steven H. Osber, who provides another perspective on Bill Scherer Jr.

“He’s tenacious. He’s unrefined. He’s rough around the edges. He’s a pit bull, but he is well thought. He’s a strategist,” Osber says. “He’s very well connected and teaches the practical aspects of being a lawyer very well. He’s got a legacy that he’s carved out for himself. He walks into a courtroom and the judges give him respect.”

Scherer is good at forecasting how judges and juries will react and is great at identifying issues, Osber says. “Sometimes he brings a ball peen hammer and sometimes he brings a battering ram to get his point across. It just depends on what’s going on.”

Scherer is also the king of PowerPoint presentations in courtrooms.

Indiana boy and a ‘gun bunny’

Scherer grew up in a blue-collar family in Terre Haute, Ind., with his mother being a beautician and his father a railroad brakeman. One night, his father was flagging cars to stop at a crossing when a drunk driver went through and crushed him against the locomotive, causing severe injury. A significant verdict gave him an appreciation of how important attorneys can be.

He attended Franklin College, a small liberal arts college in southern Indiana, and later served as a trustee for 10 years. After graduating in 1969, he was doing well selling Xerox machines when his wife filled out applications for Indiana University and the LSAT law school admissions test.

“I thought, ‘Why do I want to do that?” He was surprised to be accepted because he thought his college grades weren’t good enough. Years later, he heard that his college football coach, Stewart “Red” Faught, put in a good word with the governor.

During his first year in law school, Scherer got a low number in the draft lottery amid the Vietnam War, so he joined the Indiana National Guard.

Law school was interrupted by six months of basic training at Fort Campbell in Kentucky and six months of active duty at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where Scherer became an artillery man or “gun bunny” in Army slang.

Back on campus, the law school dean arranged a job working for a justice in the Indiana Supreme Court. Scherer did that during the day and went to law school at night, graduating magna cum laude.

The adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard was also the Indiana attorney general. “When he found out I was a law clerk and I was a gun bunny serving under him, he made me one of his [Guard] law clerks,” Scherer says.

After he finished law school in 1972, the dean recommended that he take a clerkship with U.S. District Court Judge Charles Fulton in Miami. Scherer also became a law clerk for the Florida Army Reserve.

Scherer would have headed back to Indiana after his time with the Reserve was done, but his captain, Tom Panza, suggested he practice law in Fort Lauderdale, which was more Midwestern than Miami.

A sleepy beach town

Scherer says Fort Lauderdale was sleepy, with one downtown high-rise, the Landmark Bank Building. The federal judge in Miami recommended Scherer to the bankruptcy court trustee, and he started handling cases at the new federal courthouse on Broward Boulevard. In a couple of years, he became a partner at Druck, Grimmett, Norman, Weaver & Scherer, the firm now known as Conrad Scherer.

He soon recruited Rex Conrad, who was widely regarded as one of the best trial lawyers in Fort Lauderdale, Scherer says. “He was acerbic and rough, but he was a great lawyer.”

Scherer gained mentors who helped him become a key power player in Broward. One was Hamilton Forman, whose father was a Broward pioneer and owned a dairy farm in Davie. Forman donated land for Nova Southeastern University and helped form the North Broward Hospital District, where Scherer eventually became general counsel. Prominent attorney Don McClosky also was a close friend and mentor.

The original partners, Conrad, Forman, and McClosky, have all passed away now.

Bush vs. Gore

However, Scherer also has younger friends, such as Jeb Bush. In 2000, Scherer was doing some pro bono work with a state agency when the Gore vs. Bush recount saga began. It was apparent Broward would end up being an epicenter for the recount, so Scherer was tapped to represent George W. Bush in the county.

“I got a lot of face time on that Thanksgiving day where they were counting chads,” Scherer says. He was across the table from Judge Robert Rosenberg when one of the most famous photos in election history was taken: Rosenberg looking through a big magnifying glass at a dimpled ballot.

John says Gore vs. Bush is when he really started understanding his father’s prominence.

“I was at the University of Florida, and I walked into my room with my fraternity brothers, and I looked at the TV and CNN’s on. My dad’s on TV arguing for President Bush. And everyone’s like, ‘Is that your dad? I said, ‘yeah. … And then they said, ‘Wait, is your dad going to jail? He looks like he’s getting handcuffed because he’s getting thrown out of the courtroom.'”

Scherer was angry that the canvassing board didn’t seem to have any standards in divining voters’ intents with the dimpled chads on the ballots. At one point, the Democratic judge leading the canvassing board threatened to remove Scherer. Scherer recalls holding out his hands like he was ready to be cuffed.

A model for others

With all his work and connections, it’s no surprise that Scherer became a lawyer others wanted to emulate. He remembers a Daily Business Review article where flamboyant attorney Scott Rothstein said he wanted to be like Scherer and McClosky.

Rothstein often approached Scherer and other leaders at Jackson’s Steakhouse on Las Olas Boulevard.

“He would have these fundraisers at his house, sit down and regale everybody and play the piano beautifully and sing. He was a talented guy and obviously the consummate salesman to sell people, sophisticated people, these Ponzi investments and have this major Ponzi scheme,” Scherer says.

Scherer started asking questions when Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler ballooned in size and Rothstein lived an ostentatious lifestyle. One rumor was that Rothstein had gotten in on the ground floor of internet porn. 

Scherer asked him how his firm could make that much:  “Scott, how the hell can you, because I am a very successful lawyer and we don’t make that kind of money.”

Rothstein told him he had gotten to know some hedge fund managers.

Like many others, Scherer learned about the $1.2 billion scheme, one of the largest in Ponzi history, after Rothstein temporarily fled to Morocco. On Nov. 3, 2009, a retired judge was appointed receiver to the law firm.

Rothstein had sworn his investors to secrecy, saying their investments were related to out-of-court payments to sexual harassment victims.

Victims started calling Scherer and showing him letters from banks that painted Rothstein favorably. Scherer realized the banks had legal liability and Rothstein later admitted he compromised bank officers.

Rothstein was represented by criminal defense attorney Mark Nurik, who called Scherer.

“I said, ‘What’s Scott want?’ He said he just wants you to tell the truth that he helped cooperate with you when the time comes for you to write a letter. And I said, OK, done,” Scherer recalls. “So, I wrote a letter to the judge that he was very helpful in us getting recovery and telling us exactly how everything happened and all that, and who the bankers were and how he compromised them.”

On Nov. 25, 2009, Scherer filed an amended civil complaint seeking $100 million for his clients. None of the civil cases went to trial. Settlements with banks and insurance companies, plus bankruptcy court proceedings, made the victims whole, which was unprecedented in a Ponzi case.

Rothstein is currently in an undisclosed federal prison under protective custody, serving out a 50-year sentence after ratting out some low-level mobsters.

Not slowing down yet

Scherer has no plans to retire. “I want to keep doing it as long as I’m capable. When the day comes, I hope I know it, that I’m no longer capable of convincing the jury. That day isn’t here yet.”

He has a whopper of a case ahead in Broward Circuit Court as part of a team representing 25 Florida hospitals against the manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers of opioids. The hospitals say they have had a financial burden caring for opioid users.

Scherer is gearing up: “It’s going to go to trial in 18 months. We’re in discovery. We’re spending huge amounts of time and money.”

The post The Future for Conrad & Scherer Law Firm Remains Bright appeared first on Lifestyle Media Group.

The oft-spontaneous and abstract expressionist Carone is saying it will be his final show. It’s also his first at NSU Art Museum in 62 years. Amid so many big numbers and a surely emotional moment, he’s feeling quite reflective.

On his legacy, he says he gets “great pleasure in being a contributor to audiences in South Florida, primarily to make some people receptive to the ‘essence of creation’ rather than just a literal representation of it. Every individual is capable of grasping this concept… all it takes is a curious mind to begin with.”

Carone credits his older brother Nick, who was also renowned within the abstract expressionist movement, for taking him under his creative wing beginning at 7 years old. In his teenage years, he recalls summer studies in Provincetown, Mass., where his brother took classes from famed artist Hans Hoffman. Hoffman asked Carone to be a model for one of his classes, sparking him to take up painting.

He arrived in Fort Lauderdale at the age of 21 after a stint in New York working for Chemical Bank and Trust and after being discharged from the Air Force. He recalls that the only job he could find was being a lifeguard on Fort Lauderdale Beach, which paid him $35 a week. In 1953, following encouragement from his sister, he auditioned for a music scholarship at the University of Miami. He was already an accomplished violinist with a decade-plus of study. Throughout his time at UM and well before, he was always drawing and painting whenever he could.

In 1956, Carone got married to his sweetheart Jodi—whom he loved dearly until her passing in 2000—and obtained a teaching degree. In 1959, he was approached by Jack Harris, the owner of a gallery on Las Olas Boulevard who had seen some of his work. Harris offered him a show, and Carone accepted and sold five pieces. Carone, who said he “was on a high” from the sales, subsequently approached Harris about buying half his gallery. Harris came back to Carone the next day and offered to sell it for $4,000, and Carone immediately said, “Sold!”

At the time of purchase, Carone was making $3,800 a year as a 6th-grade teacher, but he was destined to pursue his passions. Within a year, he purchased the other half of the gallery and established his namesake Carone Gallery on Las Olas Boulevard, a regional art hot spot for decades. Within the space, he focused on representing serious artists, including Wilfredo Lam, Leon Kroll, Wolf Kahn, Enrico Donati, Jim Brooks and Roberto Matta.

Carone considered Matta, one of Chile’s most iconic abstract and surrealist painters, to be among his closest friends and mentors, helping to attract a high caliber of talent to his gallery from the get-go. That close friendship lasted nearly five decades, Carone says. In 1997, Carone arranged a show of Matta’s work at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, selling more of Matta’s paintings than all of the other galleries the Chilean artist had worked with combined. Matta passed away in 2002.

While running his own operation, Carone continued to paint and draw. In reflecting on his proudest shows, they include ones at Georgetown College in Lexington, Ky., Cesare Galeria in Genoa, Italy, the Boca Raton Museum of Art and—his proudest moment—at The Palazzo Panni Museum in Arco di Trento, Italy. Another satisfying moment was his art being featured at the Florida pavilion of the World’s Fair in 1965.

On his creative process, which was heavily influenced by Matta, Carone says, “[Matta] encouraged me to experiment and believe in the power of my creativity. It’s important not to take things so literally, rather let your curiosity and creativity guide you.” He further adds, “Our unconscious are living with past influences that started a million years ago. We pick up influences from our preceding experiences.”

Carone has certainly made his creative mark on Fort Lauderdale and well beyond. Amid countless creative expressions throughout the decades, this final one in the form of a show should certainly be cherished.

Photo Credit: NSU Art Museum

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“All three of us have this overwhelming passion to help others,” says Gianpierre. “And it’s that same mentality we share because we have a huge admiration and appreciation for what we do.”

Maritza is a self-made businesswoman. Her children attribute their success to what they learned from her determination and following her example.

“I moved to South Florida in 1988 when I was married with two kids who were little at the time. I had no money,” says Maritza. She was a housewife raising her children, but after her divorce decided that she was going to pursue something she had wanted to do for a long time—get her real estate license. Maritza already had a bachelor’s degree in business management.

Growing up in Lima, Peru, she remembers her father, a developer, wanting to take his little girl with him to every project. “I grew up in that world. At the time, I wanted nothing to do with it. I just wanted to play,” she recalls. “But then here, he kind of helped me when I definitely saw the opportunity.”

In what she says was being at the right place at the right time, a broker approached her to work in pre-construction sales for the Related Group’s Las Olas Beach Club. “I was going for my real estate exam that Monday and I passed—the rest is history because he hired me.” She sold 11 of the 12 oceanfront penthouses in record time and had more than $125 million in personal sales there. Her career skyrocketed.

Gigi, a graduate of University of Florida, and her mother had been working together at a real estate firm while Gianpierre was making his way in promotions and marketing.

“I thought that real estate was great, but I liked doing other things. I was involved in other businesses.” He referred to the proverb, “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be” and added, “So, I let it go and found my way back.”

Out of that eventually came The Meza Group. “We started working successfully alongside each other and penetrating the luxury market in general. It created an opportunity where we not only learned from each other and learned a wealth of information about the locations, the neighborhoods, but I also had the opportunity to really become skilled as a seller’s agent and understand that process.”

He remembers during his marketing and promotions days when he was working with a club owner who would host Latin salsa contests. “He would be part of the contest himself and I guess I gravitated to that idea of not only doing something for a living but being part of it, too.”

Out of that came an idea that Gianpierre says sets The Meza Group apart from many others in the same field: They live the lifestyle that they sell.

“It took a lot of sales and a lot of development to get to the level of saying that we can now share the lifestyle with [our clients] and it is a very bold statement that speaks on its own. Almost every development we sell, or every community that we are specialists in, we are also owners ourselves,” says Gianpierre.

Selling and living the Fort Lauderdale lifestyle brings with it a personal passion and is what the family says is what drives them. “Miami is oversaturated and transient, West Palm Beach is beautiful, but very expensive. Fort Lauderdale is the best of both worlds,” says Gigi. “You are close to the beach scene, the downtown area, you have access to everything. For us, it is home.”

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Waterbed City officially became City Furniture in 1994. Kevin passed away in 2001 and Keith Koenig has continued to grow and nurture the business, which today counts 20 City Furniture showrooms, 14 Ashley Furniture showrooms and annual sales, in 2022, of more than $760 million.

In 2022, Keith’s son, Andrew, took over as CEO of the company while Keith is chairman.

Andrew says that the corporate values, which took root with the Koenig brothers’ partnership, speak to the core of the company. “We have seven corporate values,” he says. “The first one is entrepreneurial spirit—my dad and my uncle really started our business as entrepreneurs. And, our second is family spirit. One of the reasons we’re around 52 years later is creating a family atmosphere.”

The 41-year-old CEO says that there is purpose in having every member of the family—the next generation—involved in the business. That includes brother-in-law Ryan Cronin as senior vice president of real estate and finance, for the company, along with sister Daren Koenig Cronin and Koenig’s wife, Deanna, as part owners. “We’re hopefully creating a good family atmosphere that all of our kids want to participate in and be part of one day.”

The generational dedication to the family business is one that Andrew says is top of mind for him as he takes the business into, what he says, is the next 52 years.

“We have very specific vision statements about becoming the No. 1 home furnishing retailer in the country. Before I retire, that’s my goal. We”re No. 1 in all of our markets throughout Florida and our goal is to take that across the country. It’s not just me, but our younger leadership team that wants to make that happen—to make the older generation proud and take what they built and turn it into the best home furnishings business in the country.”

The Koenigs also count the people who work within the company as family, according to Andrew. “Our perspective is that when you have one another’s best interests at heart, you can call yourself a family and we really work hard at that.”

He says his mother, Doreen, who passed away in 2015, at the age of 62, “was big about making my dad celebrate our team and have fun and just create this really close-knit vibe,” which is part of the City Furniture brand.

Andrew says it’s important that the people who work for the company know that they are part of the family. He cites the example that he and Deanna make sure to host monthly events at their home, inviting associates from every department—25 at least each time—to come and be celebrated.

“We work together, we spend a lot of time together, we go through tough times together, like we did during COVID, and we celebrate together. We all like each other and it feels familial,” he says, adding that all this creates a snowball effect that trickles down to the customer.

“If you take care of your people and you treat them right, then they understand what the company is all about, what’s important . . . In turn, they will treat each other right and then the customers . . . It’s all about values. Our company values are very aligned with who we are. It’s very much about trust and respect.”

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 “The very first practice that I was with, it was with an older physician who didn’t want to put any capital at all into his practice,” he says. “I had to make the decision at that point, ‘Am I going to stay in this practice or am I going to break off to this practice as a very young physician and without a guaranteed salary or anything, just basically doing it on my own?’ And I decided that if I was going to believe in something, it should be myself. Each time a major decision happens, you may take a hit… you may take a hit emotionally, in terms of stress and financially. But it always pays off when you just believe in yourself, and you believe in what you’re doing.”

Mandel made a major leap to start his own practice alongside a fellow practitioner—an initial practice that lasted for 11 years before he founded the South Florida Sinus and Allergy Center. Recently, the highly-specialized practice was rebranded to Florida Sinus & Snoring Specialists to represent, in part, that it is attracting patients statewide and internationally.

Here in 2024, Mandel is 59 years old, has five kids and a successful operation with two locations (Fort Lauderdale and Plantation) and approximately 30 employees. He handles approximately 600 cases per year. Core to his success has been harnessing the latest innovations as well as keeping a patient-centered practice. In reflecting on what has inspired him through the years, he recalls the iconic, five-star Helmsley Palace hotel in New York City and its owner, Leona Helmsley, and her level of care in making the hotel a place to be.

 “When they did documentaries and interviews and whatnot with her, she would walk around her hotel and, if there was the slightest little bit of something on the floor, she would pick it up. If there was a little dust somewhere, she would pick it up. She would walk through the hotel as if she was a patron staying at the hotel. That always hit me. I’ve always strived to walk through my office with my practice administrator on a regular basis and just walk through and say, ‘OK, if I was a patient walking through my office right now, what would I think of this or that?’ I’ve always approached things as if we’re in a service industry and my job is to provide a service. And it’s a very important service nonetheless.”

Florida Sinus & Snoring Specialists primarily focuses on rhinology, sinus and nasal disorders, allergies, snoring and sleep apnea. On the technology front,  Mandel has been ahead of the curve and/or harnessing the latest techniques. Some of his proudest moments include developing his own minimally-invasive technique to treat snoring and sleep apnea; being a pioneer in the in-office surgery space; and, during the pandemic, investing $20,000 on a special filtration system and doing his own PCR testing in-office for patients. He notes that he kept and paid his entire staff through the pandemic—amid closures and all—and ensured he was the last one paid during that difficult span.

Being forward-thinking, Mandel is always looking to grow his practice, both in scope and quality. On the notion of expanding and reflecting on his two-plus decades in practice, he says, “You should never be afraid to spend whatever capital is necessary to give a better product. And in this case, the better product is better health. It will always pay dividends in this space. From my perspective, if I’m providing better patient care, more people are going to come to me. And that has always rung true.”

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Their original business, Silver Lining Inflight Catering, has grown to serve 18 airports and his first restaurant, Jet Runway, remains the breakfast and lunch hot spot at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The catering business, restaurants and an events company employ nearly 550 people.

SFBW caught up with Linder after a photo shoot for this month’s cover at Canyon and Val+Tino.

He grew up in the 1980s in North Lauderdale, a blue-collar city where Florida’s Turnpike crosses over State Road 7. The key troika that emerged for SFL was Linder, his brother Mike, who is director of operations, and a childhood friend, business partner Mitch Amsterdam.

Linder says his interest in the hospitality industry developed helping out his father, who was a chef or owner at a series of restaurants, bars and nightclubs. He passed away 2½ years ago but wasn’t part of his son’s businesses.

Linder worked his way through Florida State University where he studied hospitality, hotel and restaurant management.

He learned pretty much every aspect of the restaurant business as a server, bartender and kitchen manager at Bennigan’s. He accidentally burned down the Bennigan’s on Cypress Creek Road in 1995 when he was cooking on the line and flames shot out of the grill hood and into the ceiling tiles.

Overcoming a stroke

That was bad enough, but on Christmas Day 2000, he collapsed in the kitchen in the middle of a shift. He was rushed to the hospital and discharged. The next day, he was rushed back, partially paralyzed, and diagnosed with a stroke. He moved in with his parents and had an arduous, but complete recovery. He became a manager at a Lone Star Steakhouse. On the side, he was helping Amsterdam, who was running a breakfast and lunch café.

“Pilots were coming in, getting food to go. We figured out what they were getting and why and what it was for. We took the packaging to another level and then on the side we were doing the inflight catering. So, in addition to working 80 hours at a Lone Star, I was working another 40, 50 hours at creating Silver Lining. We didn’t even really know what we were creating. … It was no business plan. It just evolved out of working so much.”

The catering business started in 2000 down the street from his current main office near Copans and Powerline Roads. Within two to three years, it grew to serve Boca Raton Airport and Fort Lauderdale International Airport. He has kitchens at all those locations now plus Miami International and Palm Beach International airport.

Success on the tarmac

Shortly after the catering business opened, the duo drew the interest of Don Campion, president of Banyan Air Service, about opening a restaurant, but he thought they were too young, Linder says. Campion watched the catering business flourish and approached them again in 2007.

He and Amsterdam weren’t even that enthused about opening Jet Runway, but the opportunity was too good to pass up, Linder says.

“We put our hard work and effort and money into it and he [Campion] put his money into it to help us develop it. And here we are now, 15 years later, with obviously a great restaurant over at the executive airport,” Linder says.

Jet Runway has an aviation themed décor with aircraft taxing right outside the windows and jets taking off in the distance.

“The best part about it is that you go in there on any busy day when it’s bustling and it’s a minimal percentage of people from the airport. It’s brought people from Miami, from Palm Beach, from Naples to come and see this great restaurant,” Linder says.

After Jet Runway opened, people wanted to use the hangar next door for events. Silver Lining was the approved vendor, but there was a problem.

“If somebody had a $10,000 budget, we ended up having to hire a lighting and furniture company. They’d come in and take the whole budget and we had no room for food,” Linder says. He and Amsterdam started buying furniture and lighting. Now, Event Effects Group has almost 70,000 square feet of warehousing to store lighting, sound, furniture and décor for events and a second location in Orlando.

Locations with a twist

Beyond sparking Event Effects, Jet Runway set the strategy for SFL, which stands for service, food and location. Jet Runway isn’t on any restaurant row. It’s tucked amid the hangar buildings on Northwest 21^st Terrace. It’s a central location that’s hard to find, but easily accessible when you do.

YOT opened about eight years after Jet Runway at the 65-acre Safe Harbor Lauderdale Marine Center. If you are traveling on I-95 over the New River and see a couple of mammoth blue marina buildings to the east, that’s the place.

“The marina actually came and found me at Jet Runway and wanted to bring in what was similar to Jet over to the marina,” Linder says. He was won over by the stunning backdrop of docks and yachts.

The menu has simple, approachable fare — “pretty much a little bit of what everybody wants. The decor is just very northern Nantucket, Cape Cod feel,” Linder says.

Foodie destinations

The 620 S. Federal Highway location, now shared by Canyon and Val+Tino, was previously the home of Valentino Cucina Italiana, which was widely hailed for its quality.

However, a lack of outdoor dining space during the peak of COVID killed it.

Then came Canyon. Just months after Canyon moved to 620 S. Federal from its longtime location on Sunrise Boulevard, Linder got a call about whether he might be interested in Canyon, which he considered a great restaurant.

Canyon business partner Mario Di Leo told Linder, ‘I want to sell to somebody who’s going to love it as much as I did,’” Linder recalls. He hung out at the bar for about a month before the purchase and thought it was a great opportunity.

Canyon was famed for its prickly pear margaritas and southwestern fare with a bit of Asian fusion. “It’s a little bit of everything now. We’ve introduced some American dishes, some southwestern dishes, some Asian dishes, and once again, simple approachable food,” Linder says.

“It’s comfort food—it’s chicken quesadillas done well, it’s calamari done well. The short rib rigatoni is one of the best dishes on the menu. Our salmon and sea bass are great. We have fish. We have steaks—a little bit of everything. The smoked salmon tostada is my favorite,” he says.

Then, the past became the present with a resurrected version of Valentino.

Primadonna had struggled, so Canyon had taken over all the space with 200 seats. Linder strategized that having two concepts with about 100 seats each would create more sales.

Val+Tino Executive Chef de Cuisine Jake Abbott has experience at Michelin-starred restaurants in New York City. He worked with renowned chefs such as Joe Anthony and Laurent Tourendel. His search for technical mastery led him to Two-Michelin Star Chef Gabriel Kreuther. Abbott says he had to start at minimum wage as a line cook, but within a year he had the position of sous-chef.

Kreuther at the time was one of the last legendary chefs, like Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller, still cooking in his kitchen.

Abbott wants to bring the exacting nuances of New York restaurants to South Florida.

Few restaurants in South Florida do tasting menus, like Val+Tino, which are now popular worldwide, Abbott says. He wants to feature his technique from French and New York cooking, but also utilize Florida fish and produce. “Seasons change and the plates gotta change,” he says.

Eventually, he would like to do a theater menu and a carte blanche menu of seven to nine items chosen by the chef, sort of like the omakasa approach at Japanese restaurants.

 So, now, the 620 building that was once a tire store, is an iconic restaurant building where you can still see the Dade County Pine ceiling if you look upwards at Canyon’s Rio’s cocktail bar. Linder’s eye for location is poised to pay off further.

“Once this tunnel construction is done, this side of the tunnel is going to now be the next upcoming area,” Linder says. “I mean, what better to be in the exit of Rio Vista—one of the best communities here in Fort Lauderdale, located not far from the airport, right around by the 17th Street Causeway.”

Linder says there are some great restaurants on Las Olas Boulevard, but he doesn’t have much interest in opening a restaurant there. “All my locations have a little twist to ’em,’” he says. “Great service, great food, and central locations that are hard to find, but easy to get to.”

The latest: Southern cuisine

South PMP Bar and Kitchen is helping revive Pompano Beach’s historic downtown northeast of the FEC Railway and Atlantic Boulevard.

“The city of Pompano Beach found me and approached me about this opportunity. I figured I missed out on a few great opportunities with Flagler Village and that whole area. I wasn’t going to miss out this time,” Linder says. The city and building owner were very helpful and Linder had a chance to utilize his longtime interest in southern cuisine.

“Throughout my life, I did a lot of traveling through North Carolina and New Orleans and had the ability to travel with Silver Lining and it always seemed that my focus was to go hit the best restaurants,” he says. “Most of the best restaurants served up southern food.”

Corporate Executive Chef Kelly O’Hara played a key role in creating the menu that’s still evolving since South opened about eight months ago. One of Linder’s favorites is the flaky,

crispy fried chicken inspired by a New Orleans restaurant. The biscuits, sauces and shrimp ’n grits are some other favorites.

He’s not done yet

These days, Linder has plenty to keep him busy. He usually starts at Silver Lining in the morning before venturing to the restaurants and then spending time with his children and wife, who is an attorney. He’s been on the board of many charities, too.

Linder is quick to credit Amsterdam and his brother for the success, but he met another key player about six years ago at Kaluz Restaurant: Warren Thompson, whose Thompson Hospitality bills itself as the nation’s largest minority-owned food and facilities management company. It’s busy on college campuses and has about 70 restaurants.

“We had lunch together and struck a partnership together. So, he is pretty much one of my other supporters of everything we do other than Silver Lining, Jet Café and Event Effects,” Linder says. “I brought him to YOT to show him what YOT is. He said, ‘You’re crazy, but I trust you.’ We did it.”

Linder is a youthful-looking 46 and says he is not done yet.

“I think I definitely plan on continuing to grow, whether it’s in the restaurant space, the catering space, or the event space,” he says. Early in his career, he wanted to grow the catering business across the country, but thought with young children it would be better to focus on growing locally rather than constantly traveling.

“Now, as we get older, there’s opportunity and so many things that we do. Listen, when you can provide the service and the consistency that we do, the sky’s the limit. So, I don’t have one specific plan, certainly not looking to retire anytime soon,” Linder says. “I’m aggressive. I hustle.

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