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St. Petersburg's New Restaurants in 2026: Where the City Ate

September 17, 2026

The Central Park project had a six-year lead-up. The old Woolworth building at 551 Central, later home to Dome Grill, sat behind plywood while Hi Hospitality Group worked through a three-story plan that grew into five floors and a projected 14 food and beverage concepts. When Central Park St. Pete finally cracked its doors on February 19, 2026, the opening was takeout and delivery only, from two counters: Palm Avenue Deli and Constellation Burger, five to ten p.m.

Central Park was one part of St. Petersburg's food scene this year.

Central Park's Phased Opening

The soft opening on February 23 added Central Bar, the self-serve beer wall, and health-focused café Strawberry Fields, still on limited menus, still no breakfast service. The remaining concepts, modern Asian restaurant Kojo, its street-food sibling Kojo Wok, Don Ricardo's Taqueria, Park Pie, Speaks Pasta, the basement cocktail room called The Winfield, and a members-only rooftop club named Night Owl, were described by WTSP as opening "in the coming weeks and months." No outlet since has reported a firm date for the building to be fully open. A 27,700-square-foot building with its own beverage director and culinary director takes time to staff and season properly.

That leaves a useful question: what else opened around St. Petersburg this year?

Four districts offer a snapshot of that wider activity.

Other District Openings

District	What opened this year	What changed on the ground
EDGE District	Fusillo Italian Pasta, 905 Central Ave	Opened in early March in the former Nash's Hot Chicken space, dishing build-your-own pasta bowls from $13.50 to $15.50 with toppings like shrimp and burrata, fast-casual with dine-in, takeout, and delivery
Grand Central District	Jimmy's, 2534 Central Ave	The Ybor City taco spot's second location, in the former Foundry vintage furniture store, serving the same birria and shrimp taco menu that won Best Guacamole and Best Ybor City Restaurant in Creative Loafing Tampa Bay's 2025 Best of the Bay awards
Historic Uptown	Marcel, 1225 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St N	Chef Jeremy Duclut's second bistro location, taking over the former Left Bank Bistro space that closed in fall 2025 after seven years, with reservations live on OpenTable from September 11 onward
The Deuces (22nd St S)	Mrs. Thelma's Southern Cuisine and Love22	Mrs. Thelma's has drawn quick sell-outs on its mac and cheese, while chef Melissa Gardner expanded her Three Generations food truck into Love22 for takeout breakfast, lunch, and Soul Food Sundays

These openings brought new restaurants to existing storefronts in several districts. Marcel is one example: Duclut bought the building outright rather than leasing it, his first time owning property for a restaurant, and had a full dining room ready to seat guests by mid-September. By the most recent public reporting, several of Central Park's planned concepts were still to come, roughly seven months after its soft opening.

Downtown's Other Fine-Dining Openings

Downtown also saw upscale openings away from Central Avenue this year. Mei, a French-Nordic Japanese kitchen from the team behind Michelin-starred Kōsen, opened over the summer in the old Bento space and has been credited by the Tampa Bay Times with sharpening the city's fine-dining tier. A few blocks over, Isu occupies the basement of Fortu with its own entrance on Beach Drive, sharing ownership and staff with the restaurant upstairs, serving a Nikkei menu built on the Japanese-Peruvian tradition of raw fish and ají peppers.

Travel + Leisure recently ranked St. Petersburg the top food city in America. The ranking comes amid restaurant openings across several of the city's districts this year.

SHINE and the November Calendar

The SHINE Mural Festival returns for its 12th year from November 8 through 17, according to the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance's official listing, bringing artists back to paint live murals across downtown and the surrounding arts districts, part of a run that has produced more than 170 murals citywide since the festival began in 2015.

If the remaining concepts, particularly Kojo's full-service restaurant and the ground-floor taqueria and pasta counters, are running by then, visitors can experience the building with those additional concepts in operation. Either way, several parts of the city have seen restaurant openings this year, alongside Central Park's phased opening.

For a practical way to put those options together, consider a weeknight route.

Where That Actually Leaves a Tuesday Night

Central Park can be one stop on a longer walk rather than the whole evening. Grab a reuben from Palm Avenue Deli or a burger from Constellation, then head into Grand Central for Jimmy's birria tacos or over to the EDGE District for a pasta bowl at Fusillo. If you're taking out-of-town guests, Isu's basement entrance on Beach Drive or Marcel's newly reopened dining room in Uptown are additional options.

None of this requires a real estate transaction to enjoy. It's a snapshot of St. Petersburg's food scene this season, spread across several parts of the city.

For those of you already living in one of these neighborhoods and wondering how these openings, or any other local shifts, might affect your home's value or your next move, Paradise Home Team tracks the Tampa Bay market block by block. Reach out anytime for a conversation grounded in what's actually happening on the ground, not just what's on the sign out front.