{"id":380683,"date":"2026-08-25T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/380683\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T14:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T14:04:08","slug":"ace-club-wants-to-take-where-should-we-eat-off-miamis-menu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/380683\/","title":{"rendered":"ACE Club wants to take \u2018Where should we eat? off Miami\u2019s menu"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Manny Becerra moved back to Miami with his wife after years of living out of town, their calendar filled up almost as quickly as their date nights disappeared.<\/p>\n

After spending their first year of marriage away from home, the couple had developed a routine: movies on Tuesdays, dinner on Fridays and trips to the dog park on Sundays. Back in Miami, birthdays, family dinners and reunions with friends began taking over.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never make time for yourself,\u201d Becerra told Refresh Miami. \u201cI wish there was something prescheduled that I could just tell everybody, \u2018Hey, sorry. I have something in my calendar. It\u2019s already set up,\u2019 and that it was a great night.\u201d<\/p>\n

That frustration inspired ACE Club<\/a>, a Miami dining startup Becerra co-founded with his longtime friend Daniel Planos. Its proposition is deliciously simple: Let someone else handle the decisions, coordination, and logistics behind a memorable night out.<\/p>\n

The founders met at Belen Jesuit, where they bonded over wakeboarding and formed a student organization that brought classmates to a local park. Years later, that instinct to share something they loved resurfaced with ACE Club.<\/p>\n

This time, the passion is food\u2026 and the enemy is the group chat.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople throw up plans in the group chat. Nobody can agree on a time, on a place or even when to go out,\u201d Planos said.<\/p>\n

ACE Club offers recurring, prearranged dining experiences. Members provide their preferred dates, dietary needs and dislikes. The company then matches them with a chef who designs a five-course menu, paired with wines, for a single table. The chef personally explains the inspiration behind each dish.<\/p>\n

For Becerra and his wife, that can mean reserving the first Friday of every month before other invitations take over. For Planos, it helped reunite college friends who had not gathered in roughly a year and a half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finally had a night worth remembering with my friends,\u201d Planos said. \u201cACE just sets up the date. We say, \u2018I\u2019m going.\u2019 We show up, and the chef does this really personal connection with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2713<\/p>\n

Check your inbox for a confirmation email.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

ACE Club opened reservations in April and sold out its initial experiences in less than two days, according to the founders. When diners began asking whether they could return the following month, Becerra and Planos launched memberships in May. At the time of the interview, around 170 people had attended an ACE experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was honestly the most selfish product build ever because it was literally for Planos and I,\u201d Becerra joked. But growing demand turned their personal solution into a club.<\/p>\n

Its three membership levels offer different degrees of access. Platinum includes a private driver for the evening. Gold guarantees a monthly experience on a preferred schedule. Access members can book reservations not claimed by the other tiers.<\/p>\n

Membership has largely grown through invitations and word of mouth. The exclusivity, the founders said, reflects a practical limitation: To preserve the experience, a chef focuses on only one ACE table at a time.<\/p>\n

ACE Club is also developing a mobile app, which the founders said was slated to launch in the fall. It aims to solve the everyday version of the same problem by recommending restaurants based on what a member is craving, who they are with, how much time they have and the atmosphere they want.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ACE Club decides where our members go eat,\u201d Planos said.<\/p>\n

The company relies on a group of local food authorities, dubbed ACE Experts, to select participating chefs. A smaller group of those chefs hosts the personalized experiences.<\/p>\n

In a city where a hyped new restaurant seems to open every week, ACE Club is betting diners are hungry for curation as much as cuisine. Its real product may not be dinner at all, but the rare luxury of having no decision left to make, and no group chat still buzzing in your pocket.<\/p>\n

Pictured above: ACE Club co-founders Daniel Planos. left, Manny Becerra.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photos show a recent Ace Club experience.<\/p>\n

READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:<\/p>\n

\"Riley<\/a> <\/p>\n

I am a Miami-based technology researcher and writer with a passion for sharing stories about the South Florida tech ecosystem. I particularly enjoy learning about GovTech startups, cutting-edge applications of artificial intelligence, and innovators that leverage technology to transform society for the better. Always open for pitches via Twitter @rileywk or www.RileyKaminer.com.<\/p>\n

\"Riley<\/a>Latest posts by Riley Kaminer (see all<\/a>) \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Manny Becerra moved back to Miami with his wife after years of living out of town, their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-380683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}