Employees Only to open at Witkoff’s South Beach hotel in September

A New York cocktail lounge is expanding to South Beach at Washington Park Hotel, set to open in September.

Employees Only will be the food and beverage component to Steve Witkoff’s 182-room hotel at 1030 Washington Avenue. The restaurant and bar will open in a 3,500-square-foot space that includes 1,500 square feet of interior dining space, a 1,000-square-foot patio and a 1,000-square-foot kitchen, a spokesperson told The Real Deal.

Highgate is managing the hotel, which opened to guests in March. Steve Witkoff, chairman and CEO of the New York-based real estate investment company, closed on a $45 million loan with the Carlyle Group for the Art Deco hotel in May. The developers gut-renovated the five buildings and added penthouses, Witkoff said at the time.

Employees Only will be located in the property’s coral house and be surrounded by landscaping and hammocks. Known for its craft cocktails, the bar will serve drinks that include the Amelia, a vodka and liquer cocktail with pureed blackberries and fresh lemon juice. The dinner menu will offer tableside steak tartar, bone marrow poppers, bacon-wrapped lamb chops; caviar service and fresh oysters.

“The guests in Miami Beach are very much similar to New York – both figuratively and literally, as many New Yorkers have moved to Miami,” Billy Gilroy, managing partner, said in a statement.

The developer bought the former Wyndham Garden Hotel for $25.5 million in 2013. Before that, it underwent a $5.5 million renovation.