For years the off-season around here meant quieter tables and shorter waits at the same places you always went. Summer 2026 is the season that story finally breaks. Between Mercato, the Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt, and Waterside Shops, three of the neighborhood's anchor centers are opening new tenants, finishing construction, and reintroducing themselves on almost the same timeline. If you live in North Naples and you have been putting off the "we should try that new place" text, this is the summer to send it.
The Mercato You Knew Is Not The Mercato Reopening
Start with the Piazza itself. Mercato broke ground on July 23 on an expansion that will triple the size of the central Piazza along Strada Place, and the plan calls for additional turf, seat walls, benches, landscaping and lighting, plus custom-made lanterns and color-changing LED lights already wrapping the huge banyan tree on the corner. There is also a permanent covered performance stage going in near Narrative Coffee Roasters and Waxin's, and the curb will be flattened so guests can walk across when Strada Place is closed to vehicle traffic. The center you remember as a shopping-and-dinner stop is being rebuilt as an outdoor venue.
The tenant list moved with it. Here is what has changed near the Piazza in the last twelve months:
- Beeline opened as an upscale cocktail bar. Its grand opening ran 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. May 2, and it is Cincinnati-based 4EG's third location and its first in Florida. It is a drinks-only establishment with no food.
- Taberna Burntwood replaced Burntwood Tavern, and Waxin's opened its Swedish-American restaurant next door.
- Violi is coming to the former Bravo Italian Kitchen space. Bravo permanently closed, and Chicago-based DineAmic Hospitality announced plans for Violi Greek restaurant there this fall.
- Shake Shack is finally close. Its 3,000-square-foot unit sits at 9105 Strada Place, Suite 3135, in a spot that last hosted the Hand & Harvest Artisan Market, with the first Shake Shack in the region targeted "by the end of the year" as the most specific date available.
The through-line is that Mercato's operator has stopped treating this as a shopping center with restaurants attached and started treating it as an entertainment property. The same strategy pulled in Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, iFlex, Lovesac, The Shade Store, Tempur-Pedic and Warby Parker. If you have not walked the block since spring, the map is different.
The Quiet Corner That Is Not Quiet Anymore
Drive a mile east to Airport-Pulling and Vanderbilt Beach roads and you will find the second story of the summer. The Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt has been building out an entirely new hospitality lineup, and most of it is arriving on top of each other.
The headline is Ambrosi & Sons, an authentic Italian market and hospitality venue. It is taking over the adjoining spaces once occupied by The Cave Bistro & Wine Bar and Naples Wine Collection, with a launch expected in early 2026. Around it:
- The Good Pour, a Florida-based wine and spirits retailer, is opening its sixth location and has leased the entirety of the new four-unit 1000 Building recently built behind the CVS pharmacy outparcel on the corner.
- The Supper Club is opening in the former Tableside restaurant space, expanding its 1930s-inspired dinner lounge concept.
- Aufieri & Martinez Argentinian Steakhouse is preparing to open at the Galleria Shoppes, offering grilled meats in a longtime restaurant space.
- Crazy King Burrito already opened. The counter-service eatery serves specialty burritos made with family recipes from Mexico and shareable starters such as guacamole, elotes and queso dip in Suite 100 next to True Fashionistas.
- And there is more coming. A two-story building under construction at the Galleria will add about 20 new units, attracting restaurant and retail tenants.
The practical read for anyone living in Pelican Marsh, Autumn Woods, or the neighborhoods behind Vanderbilt Beach Road: the corner you cut through for CVS is becoming a genuine walk-and-graze destination. Ambrosi picked the spot for a reason. As he put it, "The Cave is the perfect spot for us because it has the retail on the one side, then it has the bar and kind of cool atmosphere".
Waterside Shops Is Executing A Strategy, Not Filling Vacancies
The Waterside story is the most deliberate of the three, and the summer's clearest inflection. The Forbes Company, which manages Waterside Shops, has been methodically reshaping the tenant mix toward luxury and experiential retail. The turnover this year makes that plain:
| Gone | Arriving or arrived |
|---|---|
| Brio Italian Grille, after 20 years | Buck & Rider, the operator's first location outside the Southwest |
| Nordstrom (former anchor lot) | RH Restaurant & Gallery, late 2026 |
| Häagen-Dazs, after 25 years | Combined new tenant in the Häagen-Dazs and L'Occitane spaces |
| Bank of America Private Bank building | Eddie V's Prime Seafood, opened June 7 |
Eddie V's is the one you can already sit down at. It officially opened its doors to the public on June 7, 2026, situated as a premier freestanding venue at 765 Seagate Drive within the open-air Waterside Shops, marking the sixth Florida outpost for the brand. The wine list carries more than 300 wines, and the V Lounge offers classic and creative cocktails, signature appetizers, and live music trios nightly.
Buck & Rider fills a different gap. The brand is built around direct sourcing, with founder Adam Strecker working with fishermen, divers, and oyster harvesters from Gulf fishing grounds to Alaskan coasts to New Zealand waters, and this will be its first location outside the Southwest. Michael Hsu Office of Architecture and MHK Architecture & Planning are designing the new Naples space.
And then there is RH. The full-scale Restoration Hardware gallery is under construction on the northwest corner where Nordstrom used to stand, with a fine-dining RH Restaurant framed by a glass atrium at its center, surrounded by six separate showroom galleries connected by landscaped walkways, single-story, targeted for a late 2026 opening.
When the RH Gallery and Restaurant opens alongside Eddie V's later this year, Waterside Shops will look and feel materially different from what it was five years ago, and the direction it is heading is unmistakably upscale.
If you have driven past the north end of the mall and wondered what the scale of that construction site actually implies, that is the answer.
The One New Restaurant Locals Keep Bringing Up
None of the anchor-center openings has generated the word-of-mouth that Heyday Cookshop has. Chef Kayla Pfeiffer, a 2025 James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist, Food Network Chopped Champion, and the force behind Bicyclette Cookshop in North Naples, opened Heyday at 4691 Tamiami Trail North on April 27, in the former Ziggy D'Amico's Whiskey Bar space in the Neapolitan Way shopping center.
What makes it worth the drive is the format. Heyday runs a rotating chef residency program, bringing in culinary talent from around the country to collaborate with Pfeiffer's kitchen team for limited engagements. The bar side is unusual for Naples too. A dedicated vermouth program brings the aperitif culture trending in cities like New York and Barcelona to Naples, and the bar doubles as a hi-fi listening room. One dish tells you the sensibility. Pfeiffer grew up with a bodega crockpot of peanuts near the checkout, and at Heyday she simmers shell-on peanuts with orange, Meyer lemon, pink peppercorns and ginger.
If you were counting on Bicyclette as your reliable off-season reservation, you now have two.
A Thursday Night Routine Worth Keeping
The other quiet upgrade to living here is that Mercato's calendar has settled into a real rhythm. Mercato Nights Music Series happens every first Thursday of the month, with live music from local artists and cover bands, drinks from The Pub's outdoor bar, and the event is complimentary to attend. It is the kind of low-effort weeknight plan that only works when you already live nearby.
Waterside Shops, for its part, keeps its own steady pattern. It is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m., and the summer-evening crowd tends to build later around the outparcel restaurants.
What This Adds Up To
Three centers, three timelines, one shared pattern. Mercato tripled the size of the space where people gather, then filled it with drinking and dining tenants aimed at longer stays. The Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt turned a strip anchored by a CVS into a build-out with an Italian market, a wine shop, a supper club, and an Argentinian steakhouse. Waterside Shops rebuilt the Bank of America corner into Eddie V's, cleared a 20-year Italian restaurant to bring in Buck & Rider, and put a glass-atrium RH gallery on the old Nordstrom footprint. Any one of these on its own would be a story. All three landing between spring and late fall of the same year is the reason your summer looks different than the last one.
The pier is still closed for reconstruction, though Naples Beach itself remains open, and Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park is still a short drive north when you want a quiet morning. The daytime rhythm of living here has not changed. What has changed is the evening.
Thinking About A Move Within North Naples
If any of this has you reconsidering where you sit in the neighborhood, whether it is being closer to Mercato's new Piazza, walking distance to the Vanderbilt Beach corridor, or a home that better fits how you actually spend your weeknights now, that is a conversation worth having with someone who lives in this market every day. Luxury by Chad Long offers a complimentary home valuation and private consultation for owners considering their next move in North Naples and the surrounding coastal and golf communities. Reach out when you are ready to talk it through.
