Call it the best of both worlds: By day, tuck into $10 breakfast platters, country-fried steak and strawberry-smothered flapjacks. By night, say “buonasera” to veal sorrentino, 18-inch vodka pies and red sauce-smothered rigatoni bolognese.
Two years after closing in Wilton Manors, the beloved LGBTQ+ gathering spot once named Shawn & Nick’s Courtyard Cafe has popped up in an unlikely place: inside the Italian restaurant Dom Caruso’s Cucina, according to the Sun Sentinel.
The newly blended business — now called Caruso’s and Courtyard Cafe — debuted on Aug. 30 at 2468 Wilton Drive, on the northern end of the Drive, near Five Points, a half-mile north of Shawn & Nick’s Courtyard Cafe’s original location in the Shoppes of Wilton Manors.
Consider it a full-blown culinary marriage between Emmanuel “Manny” Varias, the cafe’s former cook, and longtime friend Dominico Caruso, the namesake of Dom Caruso’s Cucina. Varias says the diner-Italian mashup confronts the hard reality of being a mom-and-pop in 2025 with clear-eyed pragmatism: Rents are already “ridiculous” on the Drive, he said, as are food and labor costs, so why not share the burden?
“It’s not Courtyard’s money or Dom’s money — we’re all one,” Varias says. “Everything goes into the same bank account. If Courtyard has a slow day but Dom has a great night, or vice versa, it still works out. Dom’s the yin to my yang.”
The reincarnated Courtyard Cafe keeps intact much of the menu locals remember, including corned beef hash, burgers, potato pancakes, chicken and waffles, BLTs, soul-warming soups and reliable portions of biscuits and gravy. Most entrees, even New York strips and boneless pork chops with eggs, cost $10 to $16.
Varias, the original Courtyard Cafe’s lead cook for seven years, said the comeback happened “on a whim.” His former boss, Shawn Bombard, sold the restaurant in 2023 to new owners who rebranded the space as Myth Gastrobar, keeping Courtyard’s old menu intact at first before converting the space into a bar-nightclub a year later.
After leaving Myth in April 2024, Varias didn’t seriously consider bringing the cafe back on his own until wistful customers shared memories about it on Wilton Manors Facebook groups over the summer, he says.
“All I saw online was people sharing love for Courtyard, saying we didn’t have a homey breakfast place anymore on the Drive,” Varias recalls. “So in literally a month and a half, I came up with a business plan and talked to Dom. And he says, ‘I’m not open during the day [at Dom Caruso’s Cucina]. Why don’t you put Courtyard here?’”
