Walk south down Boulevard of the Presidents on a September evening and you'll pass two versions of the same story. On one side of the Circle, there's a line outside Nōnnō Umberto most nights, waiters weaving trays of ravioli aragosta past a hostess stand that didn't exist a year ago. On the other side, at the corner of Madison Drive, two buildings sit gutted to the studs behind construction fencing, exactly where Shore Restaurant used to be.
Both spots closed for the same reason. Both are technically "coming back." One of them already did.
The Corner That Beat Its Own Deadline
Nōnnō Umberto is the rebrand of Le Colonne, the longstanding Italian seafood and steakhouse at 22 S. Boulevard of the Presidents that hurricanes Helene and Milton forced closed during the 2024 storm season. Rather than fold, owners Simone Salustri and Amber Mayner ran a food truck called Buonissimo Mobile Italian Kitchen to keep the business alive while they figured out what came next with the brick-and-mortar space.
What came next was a rename honoring Simone's father, Umberto Salustri, who opened the original restaurant. The soft opening in early January 2026 was supposed to be quiet. Instead the restaurant served more than 250 diners the first night and roughly 800 over the first week, according to Mayner. No rezoning, no site plan, no Development Review Committee hearing. Same address, same family, same commercial footprint. A compressed renovation, a new sign, and the doors opened before New Year's.
That's the pattern worth noticing this fall. When a St. Armands business reopens inside its existing walls, on its existing footprint, it moves at the speed of a construction crew and a stubborn family.
The Corner That's Still Waiting
Shore closed its retail shop and restaurant at 465 John Ringling Boulevard in late 2024 after two rounds of hurricane flooding. Co-founder Tom Leonard was blunt about why at the time, pointing to infrastructure problems on the Circle that made the location untenable. The old Shore space is now a Tommy Bahama.
In December 2025, Shore announced its return in a press release calling it a "full-circle homecoming moment," with a three-story mixed-use building planned for two parcels at 24 and 28 N. Boulevard of the Presidents. That release projected a spring 2027 opening.
Here's the timeline since then, as it's actually played out:
- January 2026: Kauffman Shore Properties LLC, controlled by developer Mindy Kauffman, buys the two parcels from family-linked entities for $100 apiece.
- March 2026: the city issues a demolition permit for 28 N. Boulevard of the Presidents. A second permit for 24 N. Boulevard of the Presidents goes under review.
- May 2026: demolition is underway. Both buildings are stripped to concrete and steel.
- June 2026: a formal site plan lands with the city for a three-story, roughly 17,000-square-foot building combining Shore's restaurant, cafe, and retail store with residential space above.
- July 2026: with the shell gutted and infrastructure going in, the Observer's own reporting revises the opening target to early 2028, not spring 2027, and city planning staff raise new questions about the project's third floor.
That's nearly a year added to the timeline within seven months of the original announcement, before the building was even framed back up.
Two things are driving the slippage, and neither has anything to do with how fast anyone can pour concrete. The first is federal. Because the renovation cost is expected to exceed half the buildings' appraised value (roughly $1.3 million and $800,000 for the two structures), FEMA's so-called 50% rule kicks in, and the entire project has to meet current flood-resilience code rather than a simpler repair standard. That's why the plans call for flood-proof glass at street level, the kind Leonard has described as effectively turning the ground floor into an aquarium.
The second is local and more contested. The site plan labels part of the new third floor "residential," but individual room labels on the drawings read more like a hotel suite layout, and that caught the attention of the city's Development Review Committee in July. Leonard has said openly he'd like to eventually pursue a zoning change that would allow short-term rentals in that space, and St. Armands residents who've spoken up at the city's ongoing "visioning" sessions have made clear that any hint of a hotel use on the Circle draws pushback. Staff also flagged a parking problem: Leonard's plan assumed he could pay to use spaces in the adjacent city garage, which city policy doesn't actually allow without a commission-approved lease.
None of that is a renovation delay. It's a zoning conversation, and zoning conversations don't run on a contractor's schedule.
What Actually Happens on the Circle Between Now and January
Whatever timeline Shore lands on, the Circle isn't waiting around for it. The fall calendar is already set, and it's heavier than the quiet stretch St. Armands sees every July and August.
| What | When | Worth Knowing |
|---|---|---|
| St. Armands Fall Festival of the Arts | Oct. 17 to 18, 2026 | Free, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, outdoor gallery of painting, sculpture, glass, and jewelry from artists across the country |
| Fright Night | Oct. 31, 2026 | The Circle's 17th annual Halloween night, retailers and restaurants handing out candy to trick-or-treaters across St. Armands |
| Hollywood After Dark | Oct. 31, 2026, evening | Café on St. Armands' adult Halloween after-party once Fright Night wraps, costume contest, live DJ, fortune teller readings |
| St. Armands Circle Art Festival | Nov. 14 to 15, 2026 | The 37th annual edition of this juried show, roughly 200 artists in gallery-style booths along the Circle |
The Halloween pairing is a fairly recent shift worth flagging if you haven't done it before. Fright Night has always been the family event, trick-or-treaters moving block to block while shop windows fill with spiderwebs and jack-o'-lanterns. What's newer is that the moment the kids head home, Café on St. Armands, in the building that once held Café L'Europe and, before that, John Ringling's own office, turns its Wet Bar into a costumed adult party with a DJ and a $100 gift card on the line for best costume. Same night, same six-block loop, two entirely different crowds.
The Real Story Isn't the Menu
If you only track St. Armands by what's on a menu or what reopened this month, you'll miss the more useful pattern. The businesses that get back on their feet fastest here are the ones that don't ask the city for anything new. A rebrand inside four existing walls, like Nōnnō Umberto's, moves in weeks. A project that touches flood code, adds a floor, or raises even a hint of a new zoning use, like Shore's, moves in years, and the year keeps getting longer the closer the project gets to actually breaking ground on the parts that need approval.
That's not a criticism of Shore's ambition. A three-story building with a cafe, retail, and residential space above it is a genuinely different undertaking than repainting a dining room. It's just a reason to be skeptical of any date attached to a project still working through the Development Review Committee, no matter how confident the press release sounds when it's issued.
For now, the safest bet on St. Armands this fall is the one already on the calendar. Fright Night happens Oct. 31 whether or not the corner across from Nōnnō Umberto has a roof on it yet.
If you've lived on St. Armands, Lido, or the surrounding barrier islands long enough to remember what used to sit where Shore is now, or you're weighing what a corner like that eventually means for property values nearby, I'd be glad to talk it through. I've spent more than two decades on these islands watching projects like this move from press release to ribbon cutting, and I know which questions are worth asking a developer before you take their timeline at face value. Reach out to Julie Klick any time you want a neighbor's read on what's actually changing here, not just what's been announced.
