It overrides properly in the first autocomplete found, but do nothing with the rest. Instead it loads the original _renderitem method that you can see at https://github.com/jquery/jquery-ui/blob/master/ui/jquery.ui.autocomplete.js#L449.
$(".someClassWithMultipleItemsOnDOM").autocomplete({
delay:500,
minLength:2,
source:path"
.....
}).data( "autocomplete" )._renderItem = function( ul, item ) {
thanks in advance