Major Food Group Cancels Sadelle’s Miami Beach Lease

Sadelle’s won’t be coming to Miami Beach’s 1212 Lincoln, as Major Food Group canceled its lease at Crescent Heights’ mixed-use project under construction. 

Major Food, the New York-based hospitality firm, led by Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick and Rich Torrisi, pulled out of a lease for a 10,000-square-foot space at the five-story building rising on the 1600 block of Alton Road, just west of Lincoln Road, the Commercial Observer reported. 

Crescent Heights, led by Russell Galbut, Sonny Kahn and Bruce Menin, and Major Food Group mutually agreed to terminate the lease agreement that was signed in 2021, a spokesperson for the developer told the publication. 

Sadelle’s is a high-end Jewish deli and market concept with outposts in Boca Raton, Coconut Grove, the Miami Design District, New York, Las Vegas, Paris, Dallas and Riyadh. Major Food Group has been aggressively expanding in South Florida the past two years. In addition to Sadelle’s restaurants, the company operates Carbone, the Italian restaurant named after one of Major Food Group’s partners, in Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood. 

Last year, Major Food Group opened a northern Italian-style restaurant, Contessa Miami, in the Miami Design District. 

Also last year, the hospitality firm abandoned a plan to co-develop a condo-hotel in Brickell with JDS Development Group, a New York-based real estate firm led by Michael Stern.

But Major Food Group is still planning to be involved in its first residential project in Miami. 

In March, Major Food Group and David Martin’s Terra teamed up with One Thousand Group to co-develop 729 Edge, a proposed 649-foot-tall waterfront condominium with 50 units in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood. Major Food Group will brand and operate the food and beverage and amenity spaces in the planned tower, as well as design the in-unit kitchens, and will be involved in 729 Edge’s design.

In 2020, Crescent Heights sold the hotel portion of the planned 1212 Lincoln project to CitizenM for $9 million, records show. The development will also entail retail, a parking garage and an outdoor, rooftop movie cinema. 

— Francisco Alvarado