Chef Chris Ponte’s modern Italian restaurant OLIVIA coming to downtown St. Pete

Chef Chris Ponte’s modern Italian restaurant OLIVIA coming to downtown St. Pete

Chris Ponte launched his first restaurant, Café Ponte, in Clearwater in 2002. He quickly made a name for himself in Tampa Bay thanks to an extraordinary trail-blazing New American menu and impeccable service. However, after an 18-year run, Ponte decided to shutter the iconic fine dining restaurant citing a combination of COVID-19 issues and a difficult lease renegotiation.

A past nominee for the highly prestigious James Beard Foundation Award, Ponte had already taken his talents to Tampa, opening On Swann in the city’s Hyde Park Village in 2016 and then OLIVIA, a modern Italian restaurant, in South Tampa in 2019.

More recently, he, along with his two sons, JT and Andy Mahoney, and his wife, Michelle, launched a new version of Café Ponte, simply called Ponte, at the recently opened Midtown Tampa mixed-use development. They are also a partner in Bare Naked Kitchen, a fast-casual restaurant concept with locations in South Tampa and Tallahassee.

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Toy and collectible shop Cultösaurus moving to Central Avenue

Toy and collectible shop Cultösaurus moving to Central Avenue

Cultösaurus is in the process of relocating from 269 16th Street North to 529 Central Avenue, the former location of RockShop, a jewelry store that features hand-crafted works created by owner Carlos Lopez, the brother of Cultösaurus owner T.J. Lopez.

The move gives Cultösaurus, a store that specializes in a wide range of toys, books, art, and collectible items, a more visible presence in downtown St. Petersburg’s booming Central Avenue corridor. But it won’t happen right away, even though the 16th Street location is scheduled to shutter in the coming days.

“We have a few weeks to go before we finally move into the new place at 529 Central,” Lopez writes in an email to St. Pete Rising. “It’s been a long process, but we are making progress.”

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Intimate wine bar and bottle shop to open on 5th Street in downtown St. Pete

Intimate wine bar and bottle shop to open on 5th Street in downtown St. Pete

An intimate wine bar is coming to downtown St. Petersburg in May, when the Cork Room is set to open on the ground floor of 357 5th Street South, a five-story, 25-unit apartment building that opened last year.

The $5 million development featured one retail space on the corner 5th Street and 4th Avenue South which was provided a perfect space for a small wine bar. Owner John Harr previously opened The Cork Room on Davis Islands in Tampa. Harr says the St. Pete version will be similar in many ways.

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Tampa Bay's first Caribou Coffee to open on Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete

Tampa Bay's first Caribou Coffee to open on Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete

Banyan Café, which recently closed at 701 Central Avenue next to the Morean Arts Center, is being replaced by a Caribous Coffee franchise, according to a report by I Love the Burg.  

Based in Minnesota, Caribou Coffee was founded in 1992 and has expanded across the country, with over 700 locations, mostly in the Midwest.

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St. Pete City Council approves 86-unit affordable housing project in Disston Heights

St. Pete City Council approves 86-unit affordable housing project in Disston Heights

After hours of public comment from local residents, many of whom were opposed to the project, St. Petersburg’s City Council approved a site plan review application for an 86-unit affordable housing development on 22nd Avenue North.

City Council was tasked with looking at the merits of the project, which satisfied all the city’s requirements.

City staff recommended approving the development and City Council’s vote was unanimous.

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Rooftop bar Cane & Barrel opens in downtown St. Pete’s AC Hotel

Rooftop bar Cane & Barrel opens in downtown St. Pete’s AC Hotel

Cane & Barrel, downtown St. Petersburg’s newest rooftop bar and cocktail lounge, is now open atop the 172-key AC Hotel by Marriott at 110 2nd Street North.

Located on the eighth floor of the hotel, Cane & Barrel’s décor will feature a Cuban heritage theme created by California-based Ellis Adams Group. It will have a 1,000-square-foot interior lounge and bar along in addition to a 1,900-square-foot rooftop terrace, which will include a second bar.

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28-story residential tower proposed for 3rd Avenue North in downtown St. Pete

28-story residential tower proposed for 3rd Avenue North in downtown St. Pete

Plans will soon be filed with the City of St. Petersburg for a high-rise mixed-use development that will transform a 0.94-acre parcel in downtown St. Pete.

Ally MW, LLC has proposed a 28-story residential tower on the site of the Exchange Hotel, formerly Hotel Indigo, at 234 3rd Avenue North.

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172-key AC Hotel by Marriott opens in downtown St. Pete

172-key AC Hotel by Marriott opens in downtown St. Pete

St. Petersburg has been on the upswing for nearly two decades, thanks to a growing and much-acclaimed shopping, restaurant, and bar scene, beautiful weather, and a favorable tax climate. That renaissance has now permeated throughout the entire city.

As Downtown St. Pete continues to go from God’s waiting room to “the next Austin, TX”, demand for hotels continues to rise. Despite the growing demand, and thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, the downtown area hasn’t seen much hotel development over the past few years.

But more hotels are on the way. 

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Baja-style Mexican restaurant Prima Cantina coming soon to St. Pete Beach

Baja-style Mexican restaurant Prima Cantina coming soon to St. Pete Beach

St. Pete Beach’s Dockside Grill & Bar, located at 4945 Gulf Boulevard, has been sold and will reopen in the first or second week of March as Prima Cantina, a Mexican restaurant with two other locations in Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades, California.

The new owners are a group led by Nando Silvestri, who is a partner in Prima Cantina’s California locations in addition to owner of Matteo Trattoria & Pizzeria in St. Pete and Tampa; Kevin Wojtowicz, a partner in Buya Ramen; and Jon LaBudde, a longtime St. Petersburg restaurateur, investor, promoter, and commercial real estate broker who’s been involved in a litany of local food and beverage concepts over the years.

According to their website, Prima Cantina’s menu “blends elements of the deep culinary heritage of mainland Mexico with the lighter, ocean-inspired, unique coastal cooking of the Baja peninsula, fused with the natural, produce-driven approach of California cuisine.”

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Aldi supermarket to open on 22nd Avenue North in west St. Pete

Aldi supermarket to open on 22nd Avenue North in west St. Pete

Discount supermarket chain Aldi is set to open a new store in St. Petersburg in a vacant retail space formerly occupied by Hitchcock's Green Market and Lucky's Supermarket.

The new Aldi location will be located at 6765 22nd Avenue North.

The 28,605 square foot store is adjacent to Tyrone Square Mall in a shopping center shared by Dick’s Sporting Goods, PetSmart, and Five Below according to a leasing brochure from Seritage Growth Properties, which owns the center.

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