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Business as Unusual – Michael Beltran Chef/owner of Ariete

Business backstory: The Miami native, who cut his culinary teeth under the tutelage of kitchen luminaries Norman Van Aken and Michael Schwartz, opened Ariete (arietecoconutgrove.com) in 2016. The Coconut Grove restaurant fuses the flavors of his Cuban upbringing with New American cuisine. He’s since opened two more Coconut Grove spots—Chug’s (a Cuban diner; chugsdiner.com) and Navé (seafood-centric Italian fare; navemiami.com).

The impact: “Our liquor license allows us to sell wine/spirits/tobacco and pre-batched sealed cocktails, and all of that helped tremendously. Also, all three of my restaurants are within a two-block radius of each other, which simplified operations and allowed me to embrace a bunker mentality and better control everything from one location. Even with staying open, our traffic was about 20 percent of previous sales [in early April], so we had to lay off about 100 employees. [Note: At press time, Beltran’s restaurants were working with a bare-bones staff.]

In the interim: “First and foremost, [when the crisis winds down], we want to bring back the staff we had to let go. Those people are the real backbone of this business. We already have prepared for what we believe will be a very slow climb back to where we once were. We sadly saw very slow days early on, so we know what it takes to grind it out and create business once again. We have faith that we have the team to do so when we get there.”

The future: “It would be foolish to say what will change right now. We are still in this; our culture, community, world business, it’s all changing daily. We will have to bend but not break when this is over.” 

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Drew Limsky

Drew Limsky

Editor-in-Chief

BIOGRAPHY

Drew Limsky joined Lifestyle Media Group in August 2020 as Editor-in-Chief of South Florida Business & Wealth. His first issue of SFBW, October 2020, heralded a reimagined structure, with new content categories and a slew of fresh visual themes. “As sort of a cross between Forbes and Robb Report, with a dash of GQ and Vogue,” Limsky says, “SFBW reflects South Florida’s increasingly sophisticated and dynamic business and cultural landscape.”

Limsky, an avid traveler, swimmer and film buff who holds a law degree and Ph.D. from New York University, likes to say, “I’m a doctor, but I can’t operate—except on your brand.” He wrote his dissertation on the nonfiction work of Joan Didion. Prior to that, Limsky received his B.A. in English, summa cum laude, from Emory University and earned his M.A. in literature at American University in connection with a Masters Scholar Award fellowship.

Limsky came to SFBW at the apex of a storied career in journalism and publishing that includes six previous lead editorial roles, including for some of the world’s best-known brands. He served as global editor-in-chief of Lexus magazine, founding editor-in-chief of custom lifestyle magazines for Cadillac and Holland America Line, and was the founding editor-in-chief of Modern Luxury Interiors South Florida. He also was the executive editor for B2B magazines for Acura and Honda Financial Services, and he served as travel editor for Conde Nast. Magazines under Limsky’s editorship have garnered more than 75 industry awards.

He has also written for many of the country’s top newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, USA Today, Worth, Robb Report, Afar, Time Out New York, National Geographic Traveler, Men’s Journal, Ritz-Carlton, Elite Traveler, Florida Design, Metropolis and Architectural Digest Mexico. His other clients have included Four Seasons, Acqualina Resort & Residences, Yahoo!, American Airlines, Wynn, Douglas Elliman and Corcoran. As an adjunct assistant professor, Limsky has taught journalism, film and creative writing at the City University of New York, Pace University, American University and other colleges.