Barreto drops bids for Coral Gables Country Club and Burger Bob’s, blaming ‘malcontents’
Influential lobbyist and businessman Rodney Barreto has withdrawn his controversial bids to lease and operate both taxpayer-owned Coral Gables Country Club and beloved burger joint Burger Bob’s, blaming a “coordinated, vitriolic, and persistent campaign of misinformation” in a letter to the city.
“It would be imprudent for us to commit to investing over [$5 million] in places where we are not welcome,” Barreto wrote Friday to Zeida Sardiñas, asset manager for Coral Gables’ Economic Development Department.
“Those who perpetrated this campaign succeeded in brewing considerable unrest in the surrounding community and the City at large,” Barreto wrote. “They painted vivid pictures of smoke-filled rooms and ‘back-channel deals,’ all of which were a fantastical farce.”
Barreto’s decision is a partial victory for activists who have rallied to keep the country club in the hands of its current operator, Liberty Entertainment Group and CEO Nick Di Donato. As of Monday, over 3,200 people had signed an online petition to preserve the country club as “a place that is accessible for ALL residents — not just the elite.”
David Winker, an attorney who has worked with the current operators, said he hopes Barreto’s decision paves the way for the city and the Di Donato family to work out a lease extension beyond April, when the lease is set to expire.
But he also said he “didn’t like” Barreto’s letter, which blasts residents for pushing back on his proposal.
“I don’t like that they’re blaming residents for demanding accountability,” Winker said.
Barreto could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
The fate of both the country club and Burger Bob’s, each popular among locals and located on city-owned property, has become a flash point in Coral Gables’ ongoing debate between embracing change and preserving the traditional flavor of the city’s quiet Mediterranean neighborhoods.
“There’s just this general attitude of, we have to give away our public assets — the stuff owned by residents — to developers,” Winker said. “This is an answer to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
After this story first published online, Nick Di Donato called the Miami Herald to say that Winker wasn’t authorized to speak on his behalf and to emphasize that he wants a friendly relationship with the city.
Di Donato said he has had a good working relationship with Mayor Vince Lago, but that City Manager Peter Iglesias “refuses to work with us.” Iglesias could not immediately be reached for comment.
City officials have contended that Di Donato, operator of the Coral Gables Country Club since 2009, defaulted on rent and allowed the club to run in disrepair over the last decade. Lago has previously called allegations of back-room deals and underhanded tactics “misrepresentations and falsehoods put forth by the current tenant.”
Lago declined to comment Monday on Barreto’s decision to withdraw his bid.
The country club’s management and some of its members have accused the city of cutting short Liberty Entertainment Group’s lease so that a tenant like Barreto could take over and inject millions into the property.
Di Donato said the club missed one rent payment during the pandemic but is now entirely paid up.
“We acquired a dilapidated, old building,” Di Donato said at a September meeting. “We have left our legacy, we have restored our building. If the city decides they want to take it away from us, we have left our mark ... but it wasn’t the moral thing to do.”
Those pushing to keep the club in Di Donato’s hands have warned that a move to a new owner would also foreshadow a future Coral Gables that is rife with luxury developments and overpriced amenities.
The city first put out a request for proposals last April, asking for a minimum initial investment of $4.5 million at the country club. The Barreto Hospitality Group, run by Barreto — a Gables resident who is chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and has led Miami-Dade’s Super Bowl Host Committee — was the lone bidder.
Barreto’s first bid was deemed unresponsive since his group failed to meet a minimum requirement that bidders have at least five years of business operations. The Barreto Hospitality Group officially formed in 2020.
The city re-upped its request for proposals late last year and again received only one bid, from Barreto. A City Commission agenda for Tuesday asks the commission to let the city manager negotiate a lease with Barreto. The item still appeared on the agenda as of Monday morning.
Burger Bob’s
Separate from his bid for the country club, Barreto had submitted an unsolicited bid to take over the lease for Burger Bob’s restaurant at the Granada Golf Course.
In his letter Friday, Barreto said “it was made to appear” that he was pushing out owner Bob Maguire, who signed a lease extension with the city last month giving him until the end of March to continue operating.
“What started as a proposal to Bob to transition his existing lease (which was set to naturally expire just a few short months later), make the City whole on all of his past-due amounts, and proceed to preserve his legacy by rejuvenating the City’s favorite diner was twisted into a web of misinformation that resulted in nothing but suffering for those trying to do a good thing, including several former elected officials who introduced me to Bob,” Barreto wrote.
“The ‘bad will’ created by a few malcontents is costly,” he added.
Despite the lease extension, Burger Bob’s has now closed its doors after holding a farewell celebration Sunday. Rita Tennyson, a chef who runs the day-to-day operations, told the Herald on Monday that the month-to-month lease with the possibility of termination made it too difficult to run the restaurant and retain employees.
“No one can live that way,” she said. “Bob decided we can’t try to hold people here not knowing what’s going to happen.”
Tennyson said she was one of three recent bidders hoping to lease the site, along with Barreto and another bidder whose name has not yet been released by the city. A city spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an inquiry on the details.
There is room to upgrade the Burger Bob’s building, Tennyson acknowledged, but she said she hopes the city can work with the restaurant to make it happen.
At the celebration on Sunday, she said, it was clear that more than just a burger joint is at stake.
“I don’t think [Barreto] really understood what it is that the residents are fighting for,” Tennyson said. “It’s not really the restaurant itself. It’s the sense of family and community that we’ve created there.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2022 at 1:13 PM.
