10 Miami/South Florida Meeting and Event Venues Opening This Winter

The 263-room Westin Cape Coral Resort at Marina Village offers 25,000 square feet of event space for groups of as many as 400 people. The venues include waterfront terraces and lawns and state-of-the-art meeting spaces with coastal views. The resort will be adding additional meeting space and another ballroom over the next two years.

Opened in December, the Gale South Beach hotel includes a 2,500-square-foot pool deck, a 2,000-square-foot basement club, and a 1,500-square-foot speakeasy called Drumbar, along with the Italian restaurant Dolce. Its 5,000-square-foot rooftop pool deck has expansive ocean and city views.

Located in one of Miami Beach's Art Deco buildings, Freehand Miami hosts events in its garden, which can accommodate as many as 200 guests for a cocktail reception, and the Living Room lobby, which can host 100 guests. This spring, the property plans to open a restaurant and lounge, the House. The Broken Shaker, an in-house bar, can provide handcrafted cocktails.

George’s Kitchen, a French bistro from owner George-Eric Farge, opened in early January in midtown. The 2,000-square-foot space features an exposed kitchen and a dining room that seats 100 people. An upstairs lounge, the Loft at George’s Kitchen, also seats 100 and is available for buyout.

The Breakers has remade its Florentine room into a contemporary Palm Beach cocktail haven. Designed by Adam Tihany, HMF features a theater-style kitchen, custom playlists from the venue's music and entertainment director, and service from a "cigarette girl," who will offer specialty items for sale or take photos. The space's private dining room seats 18 guests, and its backdrop is a glass-enclosed "wine wall" that contains a 3,000-bottle showcase of the Breakers’ 28,000-bottle collection.

This month Epic will complete a $1 million expansion to its meeting and special event space. The 15 meeting rooms will encompass about 50,000 square feet and include a junior ballroom that accommodates 225 people. Other upgrades planned include building a DJ platform on the hotel's 16th-floor pool deck.

SoBlo Boca Raton, a blow-dry salon, is available for private events. With a 1,200-square-foot space, the salon can fit as many as 60 people for events.

Khong River House, a northern Thai restaurant in Miami Beach, comes from the team behind Yardbird Southern Table & Bar. The second-floor private dining room, at 800 square feet, features a private full-service bar. It accommodates as many as 50 people for a sit-down event and as many as 75 people cocktail-style.

The recently opened Club Level of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts took its inspiration from a luxury box in a sports arena. The space offers guests the ability to watch performances from 71 "business class"-sized seats or from two viewing windows in the lounge, where they can sample hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, a dessert buffet, and coffee service. The bar is open up to 30 minutes before a show. The Club Level is also available for buyout on non-performance dates and can be used as a V.I.P. space for larger events at the center.

Soho Catering and Events consists of a 5,000-square-foot ballroom as well as a 5,000-square-foot outdoor garden with a waterfall and fountain. The ballroom can hold 300 guests for banquets and 500 for a cocktail reception. Kosher cuisine is available.