Kush Wynwood is reopening this October in the same flatiron building on North Miami Avenue where it spent nearly a decade, two years after it went dark. The restaurant at 2003 N. Miami Avenue comes back as the anchor of a small mixed-use project its owners are calling Kush Korner, with a cocktail bar, a tattoo studio and ten apartments for hospitality workers stacked on top.

That last part is the surprise. In a neighborhood where restaurants have spent the past decade being priced out by their own success, Kush Hospitality bought its building outright, kept the structure standing and put housing for the people who cook and pour drinks in Miami directly over the dining room.

The building had a life before burgers

The flatiron went up in 1926, built by Samuel Dubbin, one of the early figures in Miami's Jewish community, when this stretch was a residential pocket known as Little San Juan. In the century since, according to Kush Hospitality, it has been apartments, a pharmacy, more than one restaurant and, for a stretch, a brothel. The company also connects it to Boston mobster James Bulger, better known as Whitey, who is said to have lived there around the mid-1950s.

The group says the city later had the building marked for demolition, and that the reopening is the end of roughly four years spent preserving it rather than letting it go. The result is about 7,500 square feet in total, with the restaurant itself taking roughly 2,200 square feet and 50 seats on the ground floor.

What is on the menu

Rather than reboot the old Wynwood menu, Kush is building this one out of the best-known dishes from more than a dozen restaurants the group has run since founder Matt Kuscher started it in 2011. The burgers that made the name are back, including the Johnny Utah and the Frita by Kush, a take on the Cuban street burger. The Jewban sandwich, a nod to Kuscher's Jewish and Spanish roots, returns alongside Florida alligator bites, Reuben croquetas and chicken and waffles.

Everything is made in-house, the group says, and the beer list leans local, with brews made for the restaurant by Tank Brewing and Rocketeer Brewing. There is a kids menu, a dog menu, salads, soups and vegetarian plates, and Key lime pie for dessert.

Hours are long by Wynwood standards: 11:30 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday, and 11:30 a.m. until late on Friday and Saturday.

Next door, upstairs and on the walls

Kush Korner is more than one restaurant. Broth and Bitters, the first bar from bartender Erika Holtz, takes a spot in the building, and Creative Souls, a tattoo studio from local artist James Moyer, takes another.

Upstairs are ten micro-units the group calls workforce studios, set aside for hospitality professionals and protected by a 50-year affordability agreement. Kush Hospitality developed them with the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, with partial support from a public benefit trust fund. Ten apartments will not fix Miami's housing math, but they are ten servers, line cooks and bartenders who can live a short walk from work in Wynwood.

The art is the Wynwood part. Outside, there is a Walter Mercado mural by Lalone, work by Krave, a Welcome to Wynwood piece by Camilo Rojas and a SNEAK mural featuring Kaptain Kush, the cartoon superhero alter ego Kuscher has used for years. Inside are more than 25 pieces by about 20 artists, among them DestructionPaper, G-Wiz, Pedro Martin and Allen Penniman, and the group says an Invader piece on the building has been brought back to life. There is also, behind a closet door, a replica of Bulger's jail cell, which is the kind of detail you will either love or roll your eyes at.

Why it matters for Wynwood

Wynwood has changed enormously since Kush first opened here, and rising rents have pushed out plenty of the places that made the neighborhood worth visiting in the first place. Kush coming back to the same corner, in a building it owns and saved, is a rare case of a neighborhood original outlasting the cycle instead of being pushed out by it.

For anyone who grew up eating a Frita at Kush or a burger at one of the group's other spots, the practical news is simple: the menu is a best-of, the hours run late, and the building on North Miami Avenue is lit up again. Kush Hospitality has said October, without naming a day, so watch the group's site and social channels for the exact opening date before you go.