Fall on Commercial Boulevard Runs on Two Clocks, and the Pier Keeps Neither

This fall, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is moving on two schedules. One is precise. A new burger counter has a confirmed opening hour two days from now. The town has posted dates, times and street addresses for every event between Halloween and the first Sunday market of the season. The other schedule sits at the east end of Commercial Boulevard, where Anglin's Pier has been closed since November 2022. No date has been published for it, and none can be set by the town, because the town does not own it.

So the season on the boulevard is being built around the pier, not on top of it. Everything below that has a date attached comes from a business or from Town Hall. The pier is the one piece that doesn't.

Friday at 6 p.m., 107A East Commercial Boulevard

Skinny Louie, the smash burger chain that started in Miami, is set to open its Lauderdale-by-the-Sea restaurant at 107A East Commercial Boulevard on Friday, October 9, at 6 p.m., according to QSR Magazine's October 6 report. The same report lists a second Broward opening on October 30 at 401 Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. So the beach-strip location opens three weeks before the Las Olas one.

The menu is short on purpose. It centers on smash burgers made with fresh Black Angus beef, fries and shakes. Hoodline's September 7 coverage describes the signature cheeseburger. It comes with double American cheese, Louie sauce, grilled onions and pickles. Hoodline also notes that the company runs its stores itself instead of franchising, which keeps the menu tight. Argentinian hospitality entrepreneurs Gonzalo Rubino and Matias Palloni founded the company in November 2023, and its first restaurant was in Wynwood. In 2025, the brand's competition burger took top honors at both the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and the New York City Wine & Food Festival Burger Bash. Hoodline reports that this burger, called the Very Best Burger or Wagyu Louie, pairs double patties with smoked gouda, truffle aioli and pickled jalapeño relish on a brioche bun. It began as a festival entry before guests started requesting it off the menu.

The address has a longer story than the opening. Hoodline found town filings from October 2025 for a conditional use permit for a Mid-Century Modern style sign at 107 East Commercial Boulevard. That permit was filed under the business name Burger Vibez. That means a burger concept has been planned for this stretch of Commercial for about a year. Hoodline calls the location one of Broward County's busiest pedestrian corridors.

The timing matters because of what happened on the same boulevard earlier this year. At the town commission's April 14 meeting, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea Chamber of Commerce chair Howard Goldberg said 13 businesses in town had closed over the past year. He said the pier's closure was one factor but not the cause of all of them. A new tenant signing on a block from the closed pier is a decision made by a business, on that business's own schedule, and it's the first fall arrival with a confirmed date.

The Town's Calendar Lives a Block Off the Boulevard

The town's own events follow the same pattern as the new tenant. Each one has a fixed date and time, and most are held at parks near Commercial Boulevard instead of at its oceanfront end. Here is the fall and early-winter lineup from the Town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea events page:

Boo! By-The-Sea is a morning trick-or-treat event at Friedt Family Park, held one week before Halloween. El Prado Park on El Mar Drive hosts two of the four dates, starting with the Veterans Day ceremony on a Wednesday morning in November. After that, El Prado becomes the Sunday stop for five months. The Farmers' Market comes back December 6 and runs through May 2, 2027.

Christmas By-The-Sea is set for Wednesday evening, December 2, from 5 to 8 p.m. The town page doesn't list a location yet, but it does have an application posted for its Vendor Village.

What's missing from the fall calendar matters too. The town's Friday Night Music series isn't scheduled for this fall, and the page asks people to "stay tuned for the 2027 series." Yoga By-The-Sea, Taste of the Beach, Dive Into Summer and the Fourth of July Parade and Family Fun Day are all marked as over for the year. Between Boo! on October 24 and Christmas By-The-Sea on December 2, the Veterans Day ceremony is the only town event on the books.

For anyone driving to these events, the town directs people to its public parking lots. If you park a few blocks away, you can request a ride on Circuit-By-The-Sea.

The Pier Runs on Its Owner's Clock

Every date above was set by a business or by Town Hall. The pier is the exception, and the reason comes down to ownership. The New Pelican's April 21 report on the April 14 commission meeting says the town does not own Anglin's Pier and has neither the appetite nor the money to buy and fix it. The pier belongs to Spiro Marchelos.

Here is where things stood as of that April meeting, according to the New Pelican:

1. Closure. The pier has been closed since Hurricane Nicole caused a section to collapse in November 2022.
2. Fines. Development Services Director Jhanelle Campbell told commissioners that code compliance fines were running $200 a day and had reached $375,000. The article said some commissioners appeared to support forgiving most or all of the fines once the work is finished.
3. Progress. Marchelos reported that geotechnical borings were complete and that the project was in the design and coordination phase.
4. Cost. Estimates put the rebuild at $20 million or more.
5. Pace. The article pointed out that the new pier in Pompano Beach took about four years to build.
6. Next step. Marchelos was expected to give the commission a formal update in May.

The commission's discussion also covered the possibility of no rebuild at all. Commissioner Richard DeNapoli said he had found three similar structures in Florida that were never rebuilt. Vice Mayor Randy Strauss summed up the choice in front of the town:

"We gotta fish or cut bait. At some point we have to have a discussion. Do we just cut and move forward and get rid of the pier? Or do we continue to support Mr. Marchelos in his quest?"

That picture differs from the timeline many people still have in mind. In August 2024, the New Pelican reported a schedule that had bidding in May 2026 and construction starting in July 2026, with a two-year build and no reopening before 2028. That was a projection. The April 2026 reporting describes a project that was still in design, with demolition openly discussed at the commission. We found no published report on the May update or on any commission action after April. As of early October, the latest public account is the April 14 meeting.

Where the Two Clocks Meet in December

Put the two schedules side by side and Commercial Boulevard's season takes shape without the pier. Skinny Louie opens October 9. Boo! By-The-Sea fills Friedt Family Park on October 24. Veterans Day brings people to El Prado Park on November 11. Christmas By-The-Sea follows on the evening of December 2. Four days later, the Sunday Farmers' Market returns to El Prado Park and runs every week until May 2, 2027. Every one of those dates was set by someone who controls the place it happens.

The pier has no matching date. Its owner told commissioners in April that the work takes time no matter the budget. "If I had $100 million dollars it would still take the same time," he said. The commission's next public discussion of the pier hadn't shown up in any coverage we found as of October 7. So for now, the Farmers' Market's opening Sunday on December 6 at 4500 El Mar Drive is the next firm date on the town's calendar.

We follow changes along Commercial Boulevard and around the pier the same way we follow condo budgets: by date, by source, and by who actually makes the decision. If you own in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and want to talk through what the pier's next update or the boulevard's new tenants could mean for your building or your block, Hunter Taravella is happy to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.