South Howard's Bars Already Changed Hands. The Steakhouse Still Hasn't Opened.

South Howard Avenue's restaurant scene has changed in several ways. Disser Hospitality operates Sunset Rodeo, Good Luck Chuck's, and Howard & Platt within a five-minute walk, while The H steakhouse project has been announced but remains unopened. Here's the state of the corridor as of September 2026, and what recent openings and delays show about it.

The sections below trace those changes, from operator consolidation to new openings and projects still in progress.

The Three Doors Under One Roof

Start with the consolidation, because it's the least visible change and the most structural one. Disser Hospitality now operates three concepts within a five-minute walk of each other on South Howard: Sunset Rodeo, Good Luck Chuck's, and Howard & Platt.

Good Luck Chuck's took over the space at 410 S Howard Ave after SoHo Saloon closed in March 2026, ending a 14-year run at that address. The new concept leans harder into live music in the same footprint. A few blocks away, Howard & Platt opened in the TC Choy's building, a space that had sat dark for years before Disser brought it back into rotation.

As Tampa Bay Business & Wealth reported, the company said, "As South Howard continues to evolve, we're excited to bring Tampa another fresh, elevated hospitality concept."

The company's statement accompanied a change in operator at the address, one part of a broader shift along South Howard.

What Actually Opened This Year

Set the consolidation aside and look at raw openings, because two of them matter more than the headline suggests.

The Landon opened in late March 2026 in the former 717 South space on Bayshore Boulevard, one of the most recognizable restaurant addresses in the city. New American fine dining, new name, same iconic corner. And on July 28, 2026, Ralph Lauren opened a 2,300-square-foot boutique at 1609 W Snow Ave, next to Buddy Brew and beside J. McLaughlin. It's the only full-line Ralph Lauren store in the Tampa Bay area, and it filled a space that had sat empty for more than a year after the old Wine Exchange closed.

Here's how the block actually breaks down right now:

The table lists the current status of these addresses. The H and Joe & The Juice projects have different statuses: The H remains unopened, while Joe & The Juice is awaiting rezoning.

The Restaurant That Still Isn't There

The H steakhouse is the most useful case study on the entire strip, because it shows exactly what stalls a South Howard project versus what moves one.

The concept was first announced for 1504 S Howard Ave, the former CopperFish site, back in 2023. The parent company, H And H Food Services, submitted renderings and design plans that year, describing a nearly 8,000-square-foot flagship seating 185 guests, with a patio just over 1,000 square feet. Co-owner Ahmet Ozhamurkar told a Tampa outlet at the time that the location would be something like a flagship for the brand.

In a NewsBreak report, Ozhamurkar said, "The important thing is that we purchased the land. So we can make everything from scratch."

Owning the land outright should have made this one of the faster builds on the corridor. It hasn't. The project was originally pointed at a second-half-of-2024 opening. As of the most recent reporting available in 2026, it still hasn't opened, more than three years after the initial announcement. If you've been hearing about a Turkish-inflected steakhouse coming to Hyde Park since before the pandemic fully receded, you're not misremembering. It just genuinely has not happened yet.

Compare that to the other stalled project on the strip: Joe & The Juice, working to redevelop the parcel at 1350 S Howard Ave where the original Fresh Kitchen stood before a July 2024 fire destroyed it. That site is small, 0.08 of an acre, and reporting on the project has been direct about the holdup: parking, not concept, is the central issue in the rezoning approval, the same constraint that limited the original Fresh Kitchen's on-site capacity. The Denmark-based chain is aiming for a 2027 debut, which on this corridor should be read as a target, not a promise.

Fresh Kitchen is rebuilding a mile and a half north at 1719 W Kennedy Blvd, in the former Ducky's Sports Lounge space, at more than 4,000 square feet, making it the chain's largest location.

What This Changes About Your Evening Walk

If your usual route runs somewhere between Swann and Bay to Bay, the strip is physically unchanged, but its restaurant lineup has shifted. Three South Howard concepts are operated by one group. Joe & The Juice is working to redevelop the former Fresh Kitchen site, while Fresh Kitchen is rebuilding at a different address.

And if you've been telling out-of-town friends for the past two years that there's a great new steakhouse "coming soon" to Hyde Park, it might be worth checking before you promise a reservation. The land is bought. The renderings exist. The doors are still closed.

For a longer look at how this corridor's retail and restaurant demand actually behaves, our post on how South Tampa's lifestyle drives neighborhood retail demand digs into the pattern from the commercial side. And if you're curious how South Howard fits into the broader map of South Tampa's commercial corridors, we've mapped that out too in where South Tampa works.

South Howard rewards the people who actually walk it instead of assuming last year's map still holds. If you're trying to make sense of what a specific storefront on this corridor is actually worth, or what a stalled rezoning like the one at 1350 S Howard means for a property near it, that's exactly the kind of read Alan J. Kronenberg does for a living. Let's Connect.