Engagement in Hyde Park
5 restaurants to breathe new life into Hyde Park Village! By RICHARD MULLINS | The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA – French, Russian, American, Irish and more French.Those are the themes of five new restaurants moving into Hyde Park Village, potentially breathing new life into the long-struggling South Tampa shopping district. Moving into spaces across the village, the new restaurants will open in stages from now through the summer, the product of new management taking over the village.”Restaurants have definitely become more important for lifestyle centers like ours,” said property manager Susan Martin.Hyde Park Village had struggled in recent years, notably after a planned condo tower fell victim to the real estate downturn. More recently, national mall developer Madison Marquette took over day-to-day management of the district from co-owner Vornado Realty Trust. Madison put new restaurants at the top of its priority list, as well as sorting out which current tenants should stay. The
upper-tier Restaurant BT folded, though it has opened a new location on MacDill Avenue in South Tampa. Now, new restaurants have signed leases and are moving into Hyde Park Village. Among them, two moving into space formerly occupied by retailer Talbot’s, which had moved out amid a national pullback.
·La Crepe Nanou, a French-themed bistro with crepes, and Rasputin Restaurant and Vodka Bar, offering upper-tier vodkas and caviar with blinis and crème fraiche, a type of small pancake and sour cream, could open by May, together taking about 6,600 square feet of floor space.
·Huey’s Diner, an American-style burger restaurant, will move into the village as well, to 4,800 square feet in an undisclosed location. The opening is planned later in 2011. La Crepe Nanou, Rasputin and Huey’s are all run by the Doyle Restaurant Group, based in New Orleans. See menu http://www.hueys247diner.com/main/index.php?page=home
*Amelie’s, a French Bakery and Café will move into the former Restaurant BT location, scheduled to open Feb. 1. It will feature tartines, the French open-faced sandwich, along with salads, sandwiches and other French-inspired items.
And Irish 31, Pub House and Eatery will move into 1,500 square feet of space near the Cine Bistro movie theater. The planned opening is March 1.http://www.ameliesfrenchbakery.com/
*Irish 31 Pub House & Eatery next to Cinebistro! http://irish31.com/index.html
Village managers say they won’t need to expand parking in the district because the movie theater had already scaled down from more than 1,500 seats to just 400, focusing on a dine-and-watch combination. All the restaurants have either taken possession of their space or will in the next couple months, Martin said.Restaurants had been a major focus for Madison Marquette. They can provide a regional draw for shoppers, a strategy taken up by major malls including WestShore Plaza and International Plaza. For Hyde Park Village, the next phase will be a more intense focus on recruiting new retailers, particularly to the wedge area across from the Wine Exchange that had been left empty with the collapse of the condo plans.One of the first new retailers will be Artistry by Sparkes, which will move into space near Downtown Dogs.
