Never been to a listening bar/restaurant? Check out new Off The Clock | VIDEO

Elizabeth and Horace Henry have brought the listening bar experience to Palm Beach County.

The dynamic duo’s Off The Clock Listening Bar & Restaurant in Lake Worth Beach blends a foodie philosophy and family vibe in a high-fidelity music space that singularly selects spinning vinyl records on high-end audio equipment. The trend has been bubbling up, particularly among young urban creatives — or “yuccies” — for the past 10 years, though its history stretches much farther back.

“A listening bar is designed to give you an experience of a sense of nostalgia and also to complement the environment based on how it’s designed with the sound,” Horace says. “So it’s a very pure-quality sound and it’s a very pure vibe that you have to be there to really understand what that feels like. …

“Vinyl is one of the most pure sounds.”

The trend took off from Japan, then it made its way to New York, Miami and Los Angeles, he says. Locally, he credits Dante’s HiFi+ in Wynwood as an inspiration.

“I would say Dante’s is one of the first bars in Miami that curated a room that was hi-fi,” he says. “I don’t remember his name specifically who [initially] curated a listening room, but it was in Japan. They wanted to create an atmosphere where the music can be a little bit loud, but loud enough that we can still talk, have a good time, have some good drinks and be in a place where it doesn’t feel so clubby.”

So what are the Henrys feeling these days?

“I’m an old soul,” Horace says. “My wife is an old soul too. So I like the era of neo-soul and funk and disco. … And then I grew up in Jamaica as well, so I love old-school reggae. I think music speaks to people. ”

WINDING UP THE CLOCK

The Henrys, who are both restaurant consultants too, met and got their start in the hospitality business while working at The Breakers Palm Beach. Then there were stints at The Boca Raton (Major Food Group) and Broken Sound Club before the couple started their event production firm, Off the Clock Editions.

Now they have a landing place for all of the chic-culinary/fashion-forward events they’ve been staging around Palm Beach County for years at Off The Clock Listening Bar & Restaurant, which officially opened Nov. 2 in the space that formerly housed Not So Bizaare Ave Cafe.

“This place has always been an icon within our community and it’s something that we always thought, ‘This is such a beautiful building,’ ” Horace explains. “We were already holding events [here] and were already in the process of trying to find a home for ourselves. I think it was a very divine moment that it was available.”

EATING ON THE CLOCK

The head chef is Reginald Burgess, whose experience includes Walt Disney World Resort, Major Food Group and Carbone Miami.

“Chef Burgess has taken it upon himself to own it. He’s so talented,” Horace says.

But Horace, who is Jamaican American, is also quick to point out that the influences span throughout the Caribbean.

“We have a lot of friends within our community who are from different countries in the Caribbean, so we took a little influence from different places: Trinidad, Cuba, Jamaica, the Lesser Antilles,” he says. “The French had a lot to do with the style of cooking within the Caribbean.”

And there is also a reflection of their family life with the menu’s dishes.

“Horace cooks a lot of Jamaican food and uses a lot of spice with his food,” says his wife, Elizabeth. “So we kind of wanted to incorporate that because I enjoy it so much, our kids enjoy it so much. It was very much a representation … of our home. We wanted to bring it from home to the table.”

The menu includes:

• Starters such as Salt Cod Fritters with Sauce Créole and Jerk Style Wings.
• Hand-held options like The OTC Burger and the Jerk Cubano.
• Side dishes of House Mac & Cheese, Coconut Rice and Peas and Tamarind-Glazed Plantains.

Of the foodie philosophy behind the culinary direction, Elizabeth adds: “Obviously Horace being from Jamaica and I’m culturally from Kansas, so our backgrounds are kind of very different. But when he started cooking for me at home, I got to try a lot of dishes that I’ve never had before and enjoyed all of it. … We learned how to start plating things and visually [create] a perspective of what we liked, so it’s a bit of what we live every day.”

THERE’S NO VIBE LIKE HOME

The decor at Off The Clock is designed to reflect the Lake Worth Beach home the Henrys share with their two young daughters. Horace says it didn’t go unnoticed during a family-and-friends night they had before the opening.

“The coolest thing one of our guests … said: ‘A lot of people pay a lot of money to create spaces to look like this, to be as authentic as possible. But this is a space that you guys live every day and that you designed to look like your home. That alone is priceless.’

“We stay on brand — our lifestyle is our brand. So we wanted to keep that same vibe.”

Both agree that integral to that vibe is to avoid packing people into the venue.

“We want to make sure that you’re enjoying that experience sitting down — and the food and the cocktails and the ambience — without it being overly crowded,” explains Elizabeth. “So that was our main concern. We want to make sure that that’s what our vision is in this space, to execute that.”

EVERYONE IS BEING CLOCKED

Like that feeling of home, the Henrys want everyone to be comfortable when visiting Off The Clock.

“We want you to come here and feel safe and enjoy your time and not feel judged,” Elizabeth says. “For women … you can come by yourself and go to the bar and feel safe. That’s important for me as a woman.”

Horace adds that he thinks of his daughters in creating the restaurant’s atmosphere and energy.

“Our environment is super diverse. That’s very important to us because our daughters, they are going to grow up where you’re white, you’re black, both sides,” he says. “A lot of things that we are doing now, our kids are our main motivation because we need to have a space where they are accepted. But not just our kids, I mean my sister, she’s gay right? And I want to have a space where I make sure that people around them are … accepted in all sorts of forms.”

Off The Clock, at 921 Lake Ave., Lake Worth Beach, is open Tuesdays to Sundays. Visit otceditions.com or call 561-897-8791.