Openings: New barbecue restaurant by acclaimed chef debuts in downtown West Palm Beach

The newest barbecue spot in town has fired up its smoker, announcing its arrival in downtown West Palm Beach with aromas of oak and hickory.

Olive Avenue officially welcomed Tropical BBQ Market, the only real-deal barbecue restaurant downtown, Monday, Aug. 21, 2023. The new counter-service spot, led by nationally acclaimed chef/pitmaster Rick Mace and restaurateur Jason Lakow, is the much anticipated spinoff of their Tropical Smokehouse, one of the city’s destination-barbecue restaurants.

The new concept moved into the space formerly occupied by Aioli Bakery’s downtown café.

Here’s what’s to know about the new concept.

Tropical BBQ Market's menu pops with Florida flavor

Like the Smokehouse, Tropical BBQ Market spotlights Florida and Caribbean barbecue and flavors. You’ll find those savory tributes in Mace’s jerk-spiced, smoked turkey breast, for instance.

He uses the onsite rotisserie smoker to simmer a Jamaican-inspired chicken curry, combining smoked chicken thighs with coconut milk and curry and making spicy and mild versions of the dish. The curry ($15 small, $21 large) is served with plantains, slaw and Trinidadian roti or rice.

For the breakfast crowd, Tropical offers brisket, egg and cheese sandwiches ($12), egg and cheese rotis ($7 or $9 with chorizo).

As a sweet touch, Mace pays tribute to his favorite Cuban guayaba treats in a smoked guava-strawberry bread pudding ($5). It’s a “nod to the warm guava and cheese pastries that I so enjoy at local Cuban coffee shops,” says Mace, who earned a spot on this year’s semifinals list for a prestigious James Beard Award for “Best Chef” in the South.

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It's strictly BBQ

Unlike the Smokehouse menu, which includes fried items and wildly popular smash-style burgers as well as barbecue, the menu at Tropical BBQ is more focused on the smoked meats and dishes that can be prepared in the wood-burning smoker, a state-of-the-art rotisserie built in Tool, Texas.

Smoked meats — which are sold by the pound, by the plate (with two sides) and in sandwiches — include mojo pulled pork, DemKota Ranch beef brisket, rotisserie chicken and pork spare ribs. The menu also offers smoked jackfruit.

Meat prices range from $12 to $16 for meat-and-two combo plates, $13 to $17 for sandwiches and $20 to $38 if purchased by the pound.

While the new restaurant and market serves only breakfast and lunch for now, Mace and Lakow do offer a takeout dinner option daily from 5 to 6 p.m.: a $45 whole smoked chicken dinner with two quart-sized sides.

“I wanted to make a menu that had a good amount of diversity to it, and make it to where you can eat here often,” says Mace.

Not a burger joint

Sorry, Tropical burger fans, you won’t find Tropical Smokehouse’s cult-favorite cheeseburgers on the menu at the new location. You can still enjoy the decadent bites at the original Smokehouse (or via local delivery), but the spinoff location is not equipped to offer the burgers.

“The only equipment in the new kitchen is a walk-in refrigerator and a smoker,” says Mace, who has designed the concept to be solely about barbecue.

During his years as executive chef at Café Boulud Palm Beach, Mace’s then-boss Daniel Boulud sent him on a culinary immersion trip to Tokyo. One of his great takeaways from his time there still inspires Mace today in his more focused barbecue venture.

“They aspire to specialize,” he says of the chefs and restaurant owners he met in Japan. “What we want to do here is specialize to the degree that people come to us for barbecue.”

There's inspiration from far and near

Years after Mace experienced that a-ha moment in Japan, he began to explore small, storefront food spots with their own focus and specialties in Palm Beach County and other parts of Florida. Be it at a Cuban bakery, a Jamaican jerk shop or a Caribbean curry counter, he found not only “the ultimate carry-out meals that were representative of a place” but also that many of these spots ran on “a beautiful, efficient system”, says Mace.

“I wanted us to do things like this, things that were practical,” he says.

Practical not only in a well-focused menu but also in making the best of the 1,900-square-foot restaurant space.

“We were thinking about the utility of the restaurant, how people can interact with it, how it can be as purpose-filled as possible,” says Mace, who added seven tables he constructed by hand.

Adding neighborhood purpose to the space is why he and Lakow decided to include a retail component in the concept.

There's a BBQ mini-market

“The best thing we can offer the neighborhood is a store that has as much function as possible,” says Mace.

He plans to keep the retail shelves stocked with specialty items such as Tropical BBQ’s sauces and rubs, and heirloom Carolina rice, peas, grits and other items from Marsh Hen Mills.

“We’ll expand as we go,” he says.

He also plans to introduce a retail cooler for salad dressing, smoked fish dip, pickles and such.

“We’ll have a limited offering of fresh food that we package that day,” says Mace.

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Tropical BBQ Market

Location: 206 S. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach, 561-800-2124, EatTropical.com

Hours: Open Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., offering takeout through 5 p.m. and breakfast from 7 to 10 a.m.; closed Sunday. Catering is offered as well.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Tropical BBQ Market restaurant opens in downtown West Palm Beach