{"id":404060,"date":"2026-09-18T23:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/404060\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T23:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:26:13","slug":"how-soyka-shaped-miami-beach-restaurant-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/404060\/","title":{"rendered":"How Soyka shaped Miami Beach restaurant culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mark<\/p>\n

Mark Soyka at his last restaurant, Caf\u00e9 Roval, in 2017. He opened the Mediterranean restaurant near his flagship Soyka on property he owned between 54th and 58th streets in Miami\u2019s Upper East Side.<\/p>\n

Emily Michot<\/p>\n

Miami Herald File<\/p>\n

Mark Soyka was not a celebrity chef. The visionary who grew up inside his parent\u2019s diner in Tel Aviv was also no foodie.<\/p>\n

When Soyka sold one of his landmark restaurants in Miami that he named after himself, he had a simple request of the new owner.<\/p>\n

His daily bagel and coffee.<\/p>\n

The new owner obliged, as Soyka at the time, eyes filled with tears, discussed the turnover of Soyka<\/a> in late 2018 to what became the now closed Latin American restaurant Chica<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not culinary. I don\u2019t even cook,\u201d Soyka, who maintained ownership of the building, told the Miami Herald in 2016.<\/p>\n

Soyka died Sept. 15 at age 82.<\/p>\n

The restaurants he founded changed the eating evolution of Miami and Miami Beach.<\/p>\n

News Cafe. The Van Dyke. Soyka. Andiamo Brick Oven Pizza. Segafredos. Caf\u00e9 Roval. Cafe Cardozo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a cook. I\u2019m not a chef. My job is to design the restaurant and host people to make sure they are happy,\u201d Soyka told the Herald from inside his namesake Upper East Side landmark in 2018.<\/p>\n

Soyka\u2019s restaurants were known for more than the food. They had a vibe.<\/p>\n

Nat King Cole\u2019s younger brother Freddy Cole sang jazz upstairs in a Van Dyke loft. Cole\u2019s autumnal baritone and his quartet transformed a corner towering building of Lincoln Road into New York\u2019s 52nd Street if you glanced around your surroundings and dreamed as Cole provided the soundtrack. Soyka saw it first. He had the setting in mind. He just had to make it so.<\/p>\n

Gianni Versace, the world-renowned fashion designer, was a daily regular at Soyka\u2019s News Cafe on Ocean Drive. The venue was about three blocks from his Ocean Drive mansion.<\/p>\n

Celebs, locals and tourists were one-and-the-same at Soyka\u2019s hot spots. He saw to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t try to be gimmicky about anything,\u201d said Soyka of his News Cafe in a 2009 Miami Herald story.<\/p>\n

Soyka moved to Miami in 1985 at the peak of the city\u2019s exposure from television\u2019s \u201cMiami Vice\u201d that had helped transform a fading and dying South Beach into … South Beach. His goal, he had said, was to help real estate mogul Tony Goldman renovate the crumbling island.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing here from Connecticut 20 years ago, my first landlord directed me to the Van Dyke, and I was instantly smitten and I met the best jazz singers and musicians,\u201d said Charlotte Libov<\/a>, a Miami Beach-based medical writer and arts advocate. \u201cWhen I found Soyka I thought it the coolest place ever and News Cafe fascinated me, with its global scope. These three places formed my cultural introduction to Miami and the Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a tour of some of the Miami area landmarks that Soyka crafted:<\/p>\n

The News Cafe \"In In this file photo from Dec. 10, 2008, Mark Soyka poses for a portrait inside of his landmark News Cafe at 800 Ocean Dr. in Miami Beach. The News Cafe celebrated 20 years at the time. JOSHUA PREZANT Miami Herald File <\/p>\n

Versace\u2019s last outing was his daily walk of a mere 1,600 or so feet to his favored News Cafe for his cup of coffee and the handful of magazines and newspapers he\u2019d routinely clutch off of the restaurant\u2019s shelves. On the steamy morning of July 15, 1997, he was murdered by an out-of-town serial killer on the steps of his South Beach home after his morning visit to the cafe.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the ugliest story linked to the name of a hangout that has delighted generations since Soyka and business partner Jeffrey Davis conceived of The News Cafe in 1988. The South Beach revival was underway, in part because of preservationists\u2019 indefatigable activism and the national exposure brought to the region by NBC\u2019s pop culture hit \u201cMiami Vice<\/a>.\u201d The News Cafe pushed Miami Beach to a new golden era that has outlasted its regular rises and falls.<\/p>\n

By the early 1990s, the cafe expanded by adding a kitchen in the early 1990s, moved operations into an adjacent building and expanded the store, which carries international newspapers and cigars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe created a cafe, not a restaurant. There\u2019s a difference. A cafe is a hangout, a place to have coffee, sit down and not be rushed,\u201d Soyka, who studied at the New York School of Interior Design, told the Herald in 2009.<\/p>\n

In 2001, Cafe Cardozo, at 1300 Ocean Dr. in Miami Beach became Soyka\u2019s fifth restaurant after opening the nearby News Cafe. The cafe opened at the Cardozo Hotel and had the same sidewalk cafe theme.<\/p>\n

\"In In this file photo from April 27, 2001, Cafe Cardozo, at 1300 Ocean Drive, on Miami Beach, became Mark Soyka’s fifth restaurant after opening the nearby News Cafe. The cafe opened at the Cardozo Hotel and had the same sidewalk cafe theme. Chuck Fadely Miami Herald File Soyka \"In In this file photo from April 29, 1999, Mark Soyka and his wife Gabriele \u201cGabi\u201d Soyka pose in front of their then-new restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard. Raul Rubiera Miami Herald File <\/p>\n

Soyka wanted to open a neighborhood hangout in his Morningside neighborhood as the new millennium dawned in 2000.<\/p>\n

Using profits from the sale of the Van Dyke, Soyka, converted redesigned a four-block industrial section tucked off Biscayne Boulevard to include his signature Soyka restaurant and Andiamo Brick Oven Pizza across the street.<\/p>\n

For Soyka, he gutted an old warehouse that he had used to store his car collection. His design school education informed the decor: exposed, rusted gold-painted metal beams and exposed wood rafters, concrete walls with an unfinished texture, an eye-catching metal chandelier, and art and antique light fixtures hovering over the restaurant\u2019s leather banquets. Soyka bought the items from a Lincoln Road vintage dealer. Soyka\u2019s had character. An art gallery was a hop skip from the front door.<\/p>\n

The Peruvian ceviche was a must, a Herald food critic opined in 2004. We never skipped on the Soyka salad, which easily served two, and tantalized with its perky mustard-shallot vinaigrette, dollops of kalamata olives drizzled over mesclun greens.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoyka gave locals a reason to stay in the neighborhood, to invest in it. There, he opened all day, every day, adding brunch on the weekends before it was fashionable,\u201d according to a Herald food article in 2018 when he sold the venue.<\/p>\n

\"A A Nov. 2, 1999, portrait of Mark Soyka of the News Cafe, Van Dyke, Segafredo and Soyka landmark cafes and restaurants. Patrick Farrell Miami Herald File Andiamo! Brick Oven Pizza \"Sasha Sasha Soyka sprinkles cheese on top of meatballs at the Andiamo Brick Oven Pizza booth during the Grand Tasting Village, SoBe Wine & Food Festival, in Miami Beach, on Feb. 22, 2025. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

The exclamation point in this restaurant\u2019s title next door to Soyka off Biscayne Boulevard for more than 20 years was earned.<\/p>\n

Soyka and his daughter Sasha co-founded their Andiamo! pizzeria in 2001 inside a 1954 glass-enclosed Mid-Century Modern Robert Law Weed structure. Before it fed the Upper East Side, the space functioned as a Standard Oil gas station and a General Tire store and repair shop.<\/p>\n

Talk about a tastier use of oil. Andiamo means \u201clet\u2019s go\u201d in Italian \u2014 and people went. Andiamo! Brick Oven Pizza was a hit with its pies and paninis for some 24 years until its 2025 closing, the same year it featured a booth at the SoBe Wine & Food Festival.<\/p>\n

In a 2002 Herald story, food writer Ellen Kanner called the joint a place \u201cwhere pizza and passion come together.\u201d The critic, who eschewed exclamation points like most good writers do, was swayed by an earthy wild mushroom and gorgonzola pie. \u201cArt and passion \u2014 and Andiamo pizza \u2014 are worth waiting for. Exclamation point,\u201d Kanner wrote.<\/p>\n

The Van Dyke \"In In this file photo from Sept. 21, 1994, Van Dyke Cafe owners Jeffrey Davis and Mark Soyka pose near the restaurant and jazz music venue they opened on Lincoln Road. The Van Dyke building was originally a Carl Fisher building built by Miami Beach founder\u2019s in 1924 as seen in the old Miami Herald page Davis and Soyka are holding. Raul Rubiera Miami Herald File <\/p>\n

Mark Soyka and business partner Jeffrey Davis helped take the success of the News Cafe on Ocean Drive and transform a 1924 Carl Fisher building at 846 Lincoln Rd. Longtime residents may recall the place as a Lum\u2019s restaurant hawking beer-steamed hot dogs and gooey cheeseburgers in the 1970s before being transformed into the Van Dyke in 1994.<\/p>\n

For jazz fans who knew the music and enjoyed hearing it in proper, sophisticated settings, the Van Dyke Cafe could make you feel you were at New York\u2019s Village Vanguard or Birdland. The jazz room, tucked near an antique bicycle serving as art decor, was on the second floor of the seven-story, 350-seat indoor and outdoor restaurant\/hotel.<\/p>\n

Upstairs at the Van Dyke<\/a>, as it was known, drew jazz luminaries like Freddy Cole (Natalie\u2019s uncle), Toots Thielemans, Randy Brecker and Branford Marsalis. The late George Wein, founder of the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival, produced his inaugural JVC Jazz Festival at the Van Dyke with performances by Gato Barbieri, Hilton Ruiz\u2019s quartet and the Latin Jazz Crew.<\/p>\n

Decades ago, locals like Raul Mid\u00f3n, Nicole Henry, Tony Fernandez and Wendy Pedersen developed as musicians here under musical director and resident bassist Don Wilner\u2019s steady guidance. Pop singer-songwriters, local and international, including Mary Karlzen and Sophie B. Hawkins, used the Van Dyke as a backdrop to conduct press interviews to promote their latest projects in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n

The Van Dyke Cafe closed in 2014, driven out by skyrocketing rents and the arrival of corporate retail outlets.<\/p>\n

Segafredo \"Segafredo Segafredo was a popular spot since its opening in 2000 on Lincoln Road. Graspa Group <\/p>\n

Segafredo L\u2019Originale<\/a>, a rousing Italian-style cafe and bar that also opened at the dawn of the millennium on Lincoln Road, lasted 26 years, until May.<\/p>\n

During its run, Segafredo was a fixture for shoppers and strollers sipping morning espressos and munching bagels and crepes; lunchtime paninis, Italian flatbreads and bruschetta; and evening aperitivos and tapas before or after a visit to the adjoining landmark Colony Theatre for a play.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the best memories of Miami Beach happened at those tables on Lincoln Road,\u201d Soyka told the Herald. \u201cI think that\u2019s why the place connected with people for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caf\u00e9 Roval<\/p>\n

In 2017, Soyka opened his first restaurant in 17 years in the Morningside neighborhood, three blocks from his namesake location. Caf\u00e9 Roval, with a flowing backyard and a pond carved out of a 1923 water pump station, was higher-end, focused on Mediterranean cuisine.<\/p>\n

Caf\u00e9 Roval didn\u2019t have the longevity of his other landmarks. The restaurant closed<\/a> in mid-2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the property I own is because I want to open a restaurant,\u201d Soyka told the Miami Herald when he opened his last restaurant. \u201cIt\u2019s like a theater. Every night is a different play in a restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published September 18, 2026 at 6:17 PM.<\/p>\n


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

Howard Cohen<\/a><\/p>\n

Miami Herald<\/p>\n

Miami Herald consumer trends reporter Howard Cohen, a 2017 Media Excellence Awards winner, has covered pop music, theater, health and fitness, obituaries, municipal government, breaking news and general assignment. He started his career in the Features department at the Miami Herald in 1991. Cohen is an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Communication.
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