Chef Clay Butters was thinking first-class when he opened Martini’s Chophouse. He wanted a modern cuisine experience, with lots of local and organic ingredients and an Art Deco setting that wouldn’t be out of place in South Beach.
He wasn’t in South Beach, though. He was in South Daytona, on a street better known along stretches in Daytona Beach as a haunt for low-rent motels and prostitution.
“You tell people you’re on Ridgewood Avenue,” he said, “and they say, ‘Oh.’ ”