Fogo de Chão is moving from First Street to 1212 Lincoln Road. On Nov. 3, the Miami Beach Planning Board voted 7-0 to approve a larger restaurant in the building it leaves behind, even though the owner hasn't found anyone to run it yet. The approval sets out seats, closing times and music cutoffs. Every one of those numbers comes back for review once a tenant is chosen. For anyone living near this stretch of First Street, what the city decided this month is the size of the room. Whatever ends up inside it gets decided later.
The building's next step is the façade. That application is on the Design Review Board's agenda for Thursday, Nov. 19, at 9 a.m.
Eighteen years at one address
Fogo de Chão has been on this block since 2008. In 2018, The Real Deal reported that the 12,000-square-foot building at 836 First Street sold for $15.25 million. The seller was a partnership that included restaurateur Myles Chefetz, and that group had paid $2.8 million for the property in 2005 and renovated it in 2007. At the time of that sale, the restaurant had just extended its lease, with ten years left on it.
You'll see two addresses for the same building. Fogo's own location page uses 836 First St., and the city filings use 834 1st Street. The Lincoln Road directory lists the new Fogo as coming soon. In December 2025, the Design Review Board approved an entry canopy and signage for the chain at 1212 Lincoln Road.
Four people under the line
The reason this building needed a Planning Board vote at all comes down to one threshold. Under Miami Beach rules, a restaurant that serves alcohol and has an occupancy of 300 or more counts as a Neighborhood Impact Establishment, and it needs Planning Board approval. Fogo's current occupancy is 296.
So for eighteen years, one of the biggest dining rooms south of Fifth sat four people under the line that would have put it in front of the board. The owner, Cony Real Estate, LLC, now plans to go well past it, to an occupancy of 509. That jump is what gives the neighborhood a voice in the building's future. Planning staff said the façade could have gone to design review alone, and that the occupancy increase is what triggers the permit.
What the permit allows, on paper
Here's the approved concept next to the restaurant there now, using figures from the Miami Beach Journal's report on the hearing and the Design Review Board filing:
| Fogo de Chão today | Approved concept | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats | About 288 | 398 |
| Occupancy | 296 | 509 |
| Seating layout | One-story dining room | 330 ground floor, 48 mezzanine, 20 on a First Street patio |
| Indoor service | Under the current permit | Until 2 a.m. |
| Outdoor service | Under the current permit | Until midnight, background music only |
| Outdoor music cutoff | Under the current permit | 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday |
The applicant also agreed to three more conditions. Special event permits are banned. Patrons can't wait outside. And a follow-up study of valet queuing is due within six months of the restaurant becoming fully operational.
The condition that keeps every number open
The approval has an unusual clause. Once an operator is chosen, the permit has to go back to the board for a modification hearing before the city can issue a certificate of use. Occupancy, seat count, hours, and transportation and valet plans can all be reviewed again at that hearing.
That clause came out of the hearing itself. According to the Miami Beach Journal's account, a neighbor who lives about 100 feet from the property, and who once sat on the Planning Board, asked the board to postpone the item until an operator was named. He objected to the added capacity and pointed to valet backups onto First Street that appear in the applicant's own July traffic study. He also argued that large South of Fifth restaurants keep winning approvals and then closing, and cited RED Steakhouse, GAO and Lucky Cat. His presentation added that Gaia had told the board in September it was cutting back to three days a week.
Those names map onto nearby addresses. RED South Beach served its final dinner at 801 South Pointe Drive on May 17, 2025, after 17 years, and the Miami Herald reported that the closure followed a failure to reach terms with the landlord. The Herald's listings now place Gaia at the same 801 South Pointe Drive address. GAO opened at 1 Collins Avenue in August 2024. Lucky Cat's Washington Avenue address is coming back as Lucky Cat Steak.
The Journal reports that the applicant's attorney, Graham Penn, answered the objection by offering the modification hearing. He acknowledged that the owner carries the risk of spending millions on the renovation and then having the board cut the occupancy. He also told the board the owner wants to finish the renovation first so the space can attract a high-end restaurant tenant. The neighbor said the outcome addressed his concerns.
That leaves the owner taking a calculated risk. The owner has to build out for 509 people to attract an operator at that scale, then send that operator back to the board to defend the number.
What goes before the Design Review Board on Nov. 19
The façade application, DRB26-1178, is the first public look at what the building is meant to become. The letter of intent describes turning the one-story Fogo space into a fine-dining room. The application's stated plans include:
- Expansive transparent storefront glazing along First Street
- Limestone and bronze architectural detailing
- An open-air patio and courtyard seating area
- A sculptural staircase up to a mezzanine dining level
- Interior water features and reflecting ponds
- Interior landscaping and custom booth seating
- A bar and lounge as the room's centerpiece
- Hurricane-impact windows and Florida-friendly landscaping outside
The Planning Board report also mentions a private dining room in the plan. The application names no chef or cuisine. The design is built to win over an operator the owner hasn't found yet, and as a resident you're seeing that pitch at the same time potential tenants are.
The sequence from here
The approvals so far point to an order of events for 834 First Street:
- Façade review. The Design Review Board takes up DRB26-1178 at its Nov. 19 meeting, scheduled for 9 a.m.
- Renovation before a tenant. The owner's attorney said the plan is to complete the build-out first to attract a high-end operator.
- An operator is named. This sets off the modification hearing in front of the Planning Board.
- Seats, hours and valet are reviewed again. Only after that hearing can a certificate of use be issued.
- A valet queuing study. It's due within six months of the restaurant becoming fully operational.
Step three is the one with a public hearing attached. To follow along, the official agenda and application files are on the City Clerk's meetings and agendas page, and the Planning Board item can also be read on Miami Beach Agenda. Until an operator is announced, the 398 seats and the 2 a.m. closing are the starting position for that hearing, and the board can still change them.
If you own near First Street and want to know how a new 398-seat neighbor could figure into the value or the marketing of your residence, Adrian Burke follows these hearings block by block and can walk you through what each stage means for your building. Book a Private Consultation.
