There's Something Happening In St. Pete, Florida

Forbes

17-04-2025

Downtown St. Pete stretches on for multiple miles across several neighborhoods along Central Ave.
Visit St. Pete/Clearwater
Walk along Central Avenue between Beach Drive and 30th Street— the main drag in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida—and talk with business owners, restauranteurs, and bar managers, and they'll all tell you the same thing.
Things have changed in downtown St. Pete, and for the better.
Sitting in the sunshine along the sidewalk at Pulpo Kitchen & Lounge, a relatively new restaurant on Central Ave, General Manager Dylan Ruhe explained how this neighborhood, known as the Grand Central District, would probably not have supported this eatery ten or twenty years ago.
He spoke about the lack of foot traffic back then, before the influx of new condos and apartments revitalized downtown, before the array of local businesses you see today, when people used to say that they only came to this area for two reasons: To get gas after a Rays baseball game (apparently a nearby gas station was one of the closest to Tropicana Field at the time), or to frequent a seedy dive bar.
'When I started as an intern [with the Tampa Bay Rays] in 2003, you didn't really walk down Central Avenue very much,' Jason Latimer, now the Director of Public Relations for Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, said on a recent podcast. 'There were maybe two or three bars, two or three restaurants, that existed that you would actually want to go to.'
Nowadays, you can walk the 2.5 miles up and down Central Ave between Beach Drive and 30th Street and marvel at the fact that you encounter dozens of bars and restaurants you'd actually want to go to, with few national chain establishments in sight.
Among them are places like Pulpo, serving small plates of sophisticated (and delicious) fare: Peruvian-style ceviche, a fresh baby arugula salad with shaved Manchego, calamari stuffed with squid-ink rice.
The colors popped on the sunny day as Ruhe brought them out. The artistic plating of the dishes and the Latin influence of the restaurant reminded me of something you'd find in southeast Florida, like in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, or Miami.
The lobby of the Moxy Hotel in St. Pete is set up more as a gathering place than as an arrival's hall.
Yvonne Gougelet
It wasn't the first time I felt that way in St. Pete. When, due to a flight delay, I arrived around 11 p.m. on a Friday night to my hotel, the Moxy, I had to weave my way through the crowd to get to the check-in desk.
That's because like many new boutique hotels, the lobby of the Moxy is designed more as a gathering place than one of arrival. A street-side bar (think bar stools on the sidewalk) stops people as they walk by, and on this night, there were many eclectically dressed youngins waiting in line to take the elevator up to the rooftop hotspot, Sparrow.
Amenities in the room are very slim (some pegs to hang things on)—no refrigerator, no ice buckets or ice makers, no housekeeping until after three days. No. If you're looking for a restful getaway in a quiet corner somewhere, or a large room to hole up in on your anniversary, you've picked the wrong place (check out the online reviews). The room is not why people choose to stay at the Moxy.
Rather, the hotel is designed for leisure travelers looking for nightlife and traveling influencers/creatives who like to work in communal spaces—two segments that are certainly new(ish) to St. Pete tourism. While there is only a small writing space in the room (I dare not call it a desk), in the large common area, beside the bar, you'll find spacious communal tables for working, and even a podcast studio for recording (and yes, I did record a podcast in there - managers, you'll move the skee ball game a little farther away, won't you?).
The common areas in the Moxy Hotel St. Pete offer long communal tables for working, and even a podcast studio.
Yvonne Gougelet
The prices also reflect the South Florida vibe. It was there in the common workspace that I indulged in the most expensive coffee I've ever had: a 16-oz black coffee for $6.42. That's impressively high for a black coffee, one I have not yet been able to beat, even at the Miami airport. I remember the price exactly because it also happened to be my room number that weekend—642.
Up on the rooftop at the Sparrow Restaurant, the music from the live DJ was pumping, so loud that, by the end of the night, I ended up shoulder to shoulder in the booth with my date, leaning in just so I could hear what she was saying and ease the burden on my vocal cords. Not that I was going to complain about it. The mezcal negronis were on point, and everyone looked to be having a good time on the dance floor in their button-ups and dresses.
Someone visiting for the first time—like myself—may draw the conclusion that, between places like Pulpo and the Moxy (among others), St. Pete is being cosmopolitanized right in front of our eyes, displaying influence from its east-coast neighbors as it grows, jumping on trends in food, art, and culture.
Locals will tell you those things have always been here.
Chris Powers, the bassist for the popular reggae band 'The Hip Abduction,' whose song 'Pacific Coast Highway' gained notoriety during the L.A. fires back in January, was celebrating an anniversary with his wife at the table next to me at IL Ritorno, one of the most revered restaurants in town, when I first met him.
A week or two later, when I got him on the phone, he was in New Jersey, about to play a show at The Stone Pony, the joint where Bruce Springsteen honed his craft in the 70s. This summer, the band will play Red Rocks Amphitheatre for the fourth time, but they got their start playing beach bars in St. Pete, where Powers grew up.
The Dali Musuem in St. Pete houses more than 2,400 pieces of Dali's work.
Visit St.Pete/Clearwater
St. Pete is evolving, no doubt, Powers said. And in some cases, there is a little bit of that over-the-top, southeast Florida buzz making its way into town (i.e., Moxy). That idea is definitely circling amongst locals. Look no further than that his friend often wears a t-shirt that reads: Don't Fort Lauderdale My St. Petersburg.
Though there has been progress in revitalizing downtown, the art and cultural scenes have always been present in St. Pete, Powers explained.
'Certainly, things have changed [in St. Pete], but the lifeblood of this place has been art, music, and parks for as long as I can remember... That really hasn't changed that much,' he said. 'Those underpinnings are still there, but now, there are more options of things to do.'
A peek under the hood backs up his claims. The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Pete, with its collection of European, American, and pre-Columbian art, was founded all the way back in 1965. The Salvador Dali Museum, a museum one would expect to find in Paris, opened its doors in 1982 and boasts more than 2,400 pieces of Dali's work.
No surprise, Powers recommends visiting a couple of the historic music venues when in town, such as Jannus Live or the Floridian Social Club (formerly the State Theatre). The former opened in 1984 as a reggae/punk rock venue; the latter celebrated its 100th anniversary last year.
One night my friend said he wanted to show me something, and took me into a run-of-the-mill liquor store on a side street in downtown. I didn't know what he was up to—turns out there was a secret bourbon bar in the back, behind the Jack Daniel's display, a place called the 1st Ave Clubhouse Bourbon Bar.
Nice place, really nice whiskeys, leather chairs for sitting. I felt a little out of place wearing running shoes and shorts, until I saw a picture of the owner standing in front of the bar, wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt, for an article about its grand opening. It was the perfect juxtaposition of St. Pete's evolution.
'I will proactively say that we are 'Miami Light,'' Latimer explained. '[St. Pete's nightlife] is a little more scattered out, it's here, it's there... it's just a more chill vibe that exists here. You can wear flip flops and a t-shirt and get into just about every establishment just fine. But you still have the same [focus on] art and culture.'
Jannus Live is a historic music venue in St. Pete that opened in 1984 as a reggae/punk rock venue.
Visit St.Pete/Clearwater
Dress codes or fashion statements of any kind are not needed in the most-popular type of watering hole in St. Pete, which remains, above all else, the neighborhood brewery. There are an eye-popping 50-some breweries throughout downtown St. Pete and the county, a sign that most locals would still choose dart boards over DJs any day.
The best way to meet these local folks is to visit the dozen or so breweries located in downtown St. Pete by bike along the city's urban recreational path, the Pinellas Trail (close, but no relation to legendary Rays' manager Lou Piniella).
Grab a bike at St. Pete Biking Tours and ride west into the vibrant town of Gulfport for a brew, then increase the frequency of your stops on the way back, perhaps working in the St. Petersburg Distillery for a shot of life or one of the many breweries within a block or two of the trail.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the evolution of St. Pete is that you can write an entire article without ever mentioning what has traditionally been its main attraction—the beach.
If you've never been, the setup of the city sort of separates itself into two destinations, the downtown on the main peninsula and then the beaches about ten minutes away, on a string of barrier islands (see a map here for visual help). You could, very easily, visit St. Pete's downtown and never see the beach, or vice versa.
However, transportation between the two is super easy, and unlike many destinations in Florida, you don't need a car. The SunRunner Bus, which debuted in 2022, offers quick access between downtown and St. Pete Beach. You can also use it to get to the aforementioned Grand Central District. In total, the bus cruises to 30 stops over a 10-mile route.
That's a big perk, to be able to land in Tampa, stay in downtown, and access the beach, all without a car. Though, I must admit, I did not step foot in the sand during my 3-day visit in February. I think that, in itself, is a nod to what St. Pete can now offer a visitor. And if that makes it more like Miami or Fort Lauderdale, then so be it.