One of our favorite restaurants in Miami is calling it quits.
Paradis Books & Bread, the acclaimed cafe and shop for low-intervention wines, sourdough delights and radical literature, announced its permanent closure over the weekend via an emotional Instagram post and letter on its website.
The charming, community-driven North Miami nook had been closed for the month of January for a planned holiday, though news of the permanent closure was abrupt.
“It is with all the love we have in our hearts that we announce that unfortunately we will not be reopening, and are closing our doors effective immediately,” the Instagram post reads in part. “As with everything we aim to do here, this incredibly difficult decision comes with a lot of introspection and care for both ourselves and our community.”
A lengthy open letter posted to the home page of the Paradis website elaborates on the team’s reasons for throwing in the towel, though a reference to “our haters” in the first paragraph suggests that an incident involving a Fox News analyst who publicly trolled Paradis played a significant role.
“To our haters, we suppose congratulations are in order, so you can go ahead and stop reading now! But, to those who have loved us, supported our many changes, laughed with us, danced with us, and maybe even cried with us, we wanted to give you this parting explanation, as well as a wholehearted thank you.”
The callout from the Fox analyst in January 2023 resulted in the restaurant being “ceaselessly harassed by their followers, even to this day,” the letter states. Paradis had since made their social accounts private, put privacy screens on their gates and changed their store hours all in an effort to “minimize potential harm to us and our community.”
In the end, the letter continues, “We’ve struggled with the reality that having a highly visible leftist space that also needs to operate as a business is extremely challenging.”
But the shop was riddled with other challenges, too. The original owner-operated team of five had shrunk to three as relationships shifted and the dynamics of growing the business evolved. Ongoing health issues involving team members’ family members also played a significant role. Finally, they struggled to balance the original vision of the space with customers’ growing demands for a more food-centric experience.
“As hard as we tweaked and tried to refine it, we just couldn’t make this place sustainable, workable, or fulfilling for us,” the letter states. “We felt ourselves compromising too much and too often, becoming too exhausted to do good and genuine work. It’s time for a change, and this is it.
The letter was signed by Paradis’ remaining owner-operators, Bianca Sanon, Brian Wright and Audrey Wright. There were no mentions of future plans for the team, including Sanon, who previously worked as the general manager and sommelier at Miami’s Michelin-starred Boia De.