The Cameo Comeback: South Beach's 1938 Theater to Return as a Supper Club and Late-Night Lounge
One of Washington Avenue's most famous rooms is coming back. The Cameo Theater at 1445 Washington Avenue — the Art Deco landmark on the corner of Española Way that has sat mostly vacant since its nightclub closed in 2019 — has won approval from the Miami Beach Planning Board to reopen as a two-story dining and entertainment destination: an upscale restaurant upstairs, a cocktail lounge built around the theater's original stage downstairs, and entertainment that runs until 5 AM.
The Approval
The Planning Board voted unanimously to grant the conditional use permit for the revival, approving a plan filed by Mainro Miami Holdings LLC and led by nightlife operator Romain Zago — the longtime owner-operator of Mynt Lounge on Collins Avenue, one of the defining rooms of South Beach's 2000s club era.
The approval comes with conditions. Total capacity is capped at 987 people — well down from the 1,121-person nightclub license the building carried in its club days — alongside rules on sound, sidewalks and operations designed to keep the late-night footprint in check.
What's Coming
- Ground floor: a 226-seat bar and lounge that keeps the theater's existing stage, built for live entertainment, running 11 PM to 5 AM
- Second floor: a 240-seat upscale restaurant, open 6:30 PM to 4 AM
- The concept, in the application's own words: "a refined dining-and-entertainment destination in the tradition of the grand European supper houses — a modern Moulin Rouge by way of Cirque du Soleil" — live theatrical performance instead of an open dance floor
- The room: 466 seats across 17,589 square feet
In other words: dinner first, a show on the original stage, and a lounge that carries the night — a very different brief from the mega-club the Cameo used to be.
The Room
The Cameo has lived several lives since it went up in 1938: movie palace, a punk and hardcore room in the '80s and '90s, then the Crobar and Cameo nightclub era that made the corner of Washington and Española one of the most famous addresses in South Beach nightlife. The marquee has been dark since the nightclub closed in 2019.
Why It Matters
Washington Avenue has spent years losing the rooms that made it famous, and Miami Beach's late-night map has steadily shrunk. The Cameo plan is the clearest sign yet of what replaces them: smaller capacity, dining-led, performance-driven — and one of the few formats the city is still willing to let run to 5 AM. If Zago delivers it, South Beach gets a landmark back and a new anchor for the corridor in the same move.
What We Don't Know Yet
No reopening date has been announced, and there's no word yet on the restaurant's name or chef. We'll update this story as the build-out takes shape — follow @key2.miami for the latest.
Reporting based on coverage by Miami Lately (@miamilately), Commercial Observer and RE MiamiBeach. Cover photo: Daniel di Palma, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.