“So, what’s going on at the old Bikes Beans location? They’re painting it yellow.”
– A. DENNIS
The former Audubon Park-based bicycle-inspired coffee shop, Bikes, Beans, and Bordeaux Cafe, closed up shop in November 2022, but a new tenant has already snatched it up and is in the process of building it out for a fresh new concept.
According to what we could sleuth out from paperwork filed with the City of Orlando, the project is led by Timothy Lovero who was most recently serving as executive sous chef at Luke’s Kitchen in Maitland (for the past 15 years), though his last official day was Wednesday, September 13. So we contacted him to see what he had planned for the new project.
“It’s called “Coro,” and it’s got Italian roots. I learned a lot from my time at Prato about good pastas but this will be my own take as well as things like dumplings and pierogies. It’ll have a little Asian influence too from my time out in California. I just want a really unpretentious restaurant with a very relaxed vibe that serves really, really good food. It’s more of an “experience” restaurant.”
– CHEF/OWNER TIM LOVERO
The New-American-style-ish restaurant will serve beer and wine alongside house-made juices and kombucha and will specialize in small plates, with chef-driven tasting menus to come further down the line.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do since I was eight years old. Own my own restaurant. I’ve been looking for the perfect spot for the past four years but every time I was ready to make an offer, the spot would get snatched up. Just like a lot of chefs in town I’ll try to use as much local ingredients as possible, but it’s also going to be about finding the best ingredients that are available that week. It’ll be a smaller menu that changes fairly regularly.”
– CHEF/OWNER TIM LOVERO
Coro Restaurant (Facebook | Instagram) is expected to open at 3022 Corrine Drive [GMap] sometime this October, depending on city permitting.
Do you have something you want us to look into for you? Send your question to [email protected] and we’ll check it out!
