Every city has a story it tells visitors—the skyline, the waterfront, the headline-grabbing openings. But then there’s the story a city tells itself, the quieter one, shaped by the people who show up every morning to build something with their hands, their voices, and their conviction that this place is worth the effort. The spring issue of WPB Magazine is about that second story.
Our cover belongs to Wilkine Brutus, an award-winning WLRN journalist whose place-based storytelling captures the cultural richness of Palm Beach County in ways that press releases and ribbon cuttings never could. From documenting a FAMU-led community garden that tackles food scarcity to profiling the Hungarian enclave in Lake Worth Beach, Brutus finds the deeper narrative beneath the surface. His work reminds us that the most powerful stories are often the ones hiding in plain sight—at a commission meeting, a neighborhood dance night, or a mother’s refugee journey retold across a kitchen table.
That same spirit of making something meaningful from the ground up runs through every piece in this edition. Lani Goodrich started Avenue Pottery with a discarded kiln, YouTube tutorials, and a backyard studio. Today, her Dixie Highway workshop supplies handmade stoneware to local restaurants and has become a gathering place where an 80-year-old named Jack drops in most mornings just to talk, learn, and feel connected. Christian and Alex Le Clainche turned a grandfather’s unrealized dream of growing Jamaican coffee into Pumphouse Coffee, a homegrown brand now expanding from its 8,000-square-foot Pouratorium to a downtown café, Palm Beach International Airport, and a donut shop in Flamingo Park.
In Northwood Village, we walk the streets with the merchants and artists who gave the neighborhood its Bohemian soul—Sal Kutsal behind his century-old piano bar at Cafe Centro, Robert Thompson selling antiques with nothing more than a handshake and a first-name business card, Pedro and Mily feeding the block from Mestizo’s backyard patio. The cranes are rising, and new developments are coming, but the character of the village still belongs to the people who built it when no one else would.
Downtown, the transformation is no longer a promise—it’s a daily reality. Our dining column traces how West Palm Beach evolved from a quiet tourist stop into a full-rhythm city where residents shape the restaurant scene as much as any chef or investor. And at Kyma, the new Greek seafood arrival at Banyan and Olive, the Aegean energy on a Tuesday night feels like proof that Downtown WPB is for real.
What ties these stories together is something you cannot manufacture or replicate: people who care deeply about a place and pour themselves into it. Potters and journalists, coffee roasters and restaurateurs, artists and shopkeepers—they are the makers, and what they’ve set in motion is the movement.
Welcome to the Spring issue. We hope it moves you, too. Warmly,