Cleveland Street Is Filling In Before the Downtown Clearwater Towers Do

Downtown Clearwater's big projects are still concrete and cranes. In the meantime, three blocks of Cleveland Street have quietly turned into somewhere to eat before a show at Coachman Park and somewhere to stay afterward. Nubo Café & Bakery, Nourish & Nosh and a new free Saturday night music series are already open. Two restaurants from one of Tampa's best-known hospitality groups are close behind. The holiday calendar at the park starts tomorrow night.

All of this sits within a short walk of the park entrance. Here's how it lays out, block by block, with the dates that matter through early December.

The 400 block already has a Saturday night

The block closest to the water has filled in fastest. Nubo Café & Bakery held its grand opening at 420 Cleveland St. in mid-August, according to the announcement for the opening. The menu is Ukrainian and European. It runs from borshch, varenyky and deruny to syrnyky, crepes, croissants, cakes, soups and salads, plus coffee and tea. Nothing else on downtown Clearwater's main street serves food like it.

Starting Oct. 10, the same block also has a standing weekend plan. The District Bistro's events page lists free live music every Saturday night on the 400 block from 7 to 10 p.m. It describes the series as a community event hosted by several downtown businesses, with a different musician each week. That's three Saturday nights in already, and Halloween is the fourth.

Next on this block is Streetlight Taco, going into the Peoples Bank Building at 432 Cleveland St. The Tampa Bay Times reported on Aug. 2 that the opening is targeted for the first quarter of 2027. The original South Tampa location earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand distinction a few months after it opened in 2024. It's known for stone-ground heirloom corn tortillas and an agave spirits program. The building sits at the corner of Cleveland and Fort Harrison Avenue. The Times describes it as Mediterranean Revival in style, with a restored four-faced clock and historically accurate storefronts.

The 500 block is waiting on a 100-year-old building

Rippers, a 33-seat spot for burgers, chicken wings and deep-fried hot dogs, is planned for the Telephone Building at 534 Cleveland St. The Times said it's planned to open by the end of 2026. The menu announced in July adds sandwiches, fries and milkshakes, and both dine-in and takeout are planned. As of this writing, that year-end target is still the latest date.

The building is the draw here. It's more than a century old, and per the redevelopment group's description quoted in the Times, its "47,000 bricks" were "individually inspected and restored" with "period-matched brick and mortar." The Times reported that when Nick Reader first saw the space, it reminded him of an old drugstore soda fountain diner.

Reader is the CEO of Tastes Pretty Good, the Tampa Bay group behind both Rippers and Streetlight Taco. Its portfolio includes Michelin-starred, Bib Gourmand and Recommended restaurants. Clearwater will be the group's first venture outside Tampa. Reader called Cleveland Street an "untapped gem" and named Nashville and Austin as templates for where Clearwater could go. "Restaurants and artists can be tipping points for real change," he told the Tampa Bay Times. That's his bet. For anyone who lives nearby, the more immediate point is two new places to eat within a block of each other by early next year.

The 600 block covers breakfast and Halloween

Nourish & Nosh Bakery Bistro has been open in the Atrium Building at 601 Cleveland St. since early July. It serves breakfast, coffee and food made from scratch. The menu includes breakfast sandwiches, bagels, crustless quiche, salads, pastries and cookies, plus gluten-free and specialty baked goods. Its online menu lists items from 7:45 a.m. to 1:59 p.m., so plan on mornings and lunch.

Across the street, The District at 612 Cleveland St. hosts the City's free Salsa and Bachata Halloween on Saturday, Oct. 31, from 6 to 11 p.m. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. That means dancing on the 600 block and the weekly live music on the 400 block run on the same night, two blocks apart.

Further down at 635 Cleveland St., Hanami is a planned Japanese izakaya from restaurateur Sheng Long Yu. Patch reported on it in May, describing sushi, ramen and yakitori. No opening date has been announced.

Pairing the park calendar with the street

Coachman Park and The BayCare Sound sit at the end of all three blocks, and the next six weeks are busy. Here are the City's listed dates, matched with whatever is open on Cleveland Street at the same hour.

A few of these come with details worth knowing ahead of time. Fall-O-Ween includes a costume contest, a candy trail and touch-a-truck. The Market Marie is a second-Saturday market with more than 130 small-business vendors. The Reggae Sound Splash lineup includes The Wailers, Third World, Inner Circle and the Ska-Talites. The two market Saturdays make the longest downtown days on the calendar. You can do breakfast on the 600 block, the market at the park until 2 p.m., and music back on the 400 block from 7.

The skyline runs on a different clock

Clearwater's larger projects are on a slower schedule. Most of them won't change a night out downtown this year or next.

• The Bluffs, on the former City Hall site at 100 and 150 S. Osceola Ave., poured its first elevated concrete in September. Top-out is targeted for mid-July 2027 and completion for summer 2028, according to the City's Sept. 24 update.
• The Ballad Hotel at 50 N. Osceola Ave. broke ground in December 2025. It's planned for 158 rooms plus a restaurant, retail and a rooftop bar, and its grand opening is currently listed as late 2027 on the City's project page. That's later than the mid-2027 date in a January City newsletter.
• The Osceola Parking Garage will add 397 spaces and 12,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. Construction is estimated to finish in January 2027.
• PSTA's new downtown Clearwater station is under construction, and the City's project listing says the transit agency expects it to open in fall 2027.
• The EVO Family Entertainment Center, an 83,000-square-foot project planned for the Cleveland Street gateway, moved into construction-document work after City approvals. An Oct. 12 update gave no construction or opening date.

The largest piece of open land is still undecided. Pinellas County's downtown holdings cover 17 properties, 34 parcels and about 24.5 acres. The county asked developers for proposals in June. On Oct. 13 it rejected the two proposals it received and said it would explore other options.

Taken together, the 2027 and 2028 dates show which downtown arrives first. Restaurants are opening in buildings that have stood on Cleveland Street for a century, while the new towers are still a year or more out. The next milestones on the street are Rippers, targeted by the end of 2026, and Streetlight Taco, targeted for the first quarter of 2027.

If you're a Clearwater homeowner wondering how a changing Cleveland Street figures into your home's value, The Waugh Group can walk you through it block by block. Request a free home valuation or schedule a free consultation, and we'll keep you posted as new places on Cleveland Street open their doors.