"We wanted something that was different than anything else that's already here on the island," Brent Cross said this summer, explaining why The Gasparilla Inn had bought a 1,500-square-foot building at 310 East Railroad Ave. Cross is the Inn's president and general manager. The sushi and the Japanese-forward menu make the headline. The bigger change is the schedule. The Inn's other kitchens run on a resort season. This one is planned to stay open all year, and it will start without reservations.
The building has been here before. Over the past few years, 310 East Railroad has been the room the island used when something else was missing.
Four chapters at one address
The Boca Beacon's July 30, 2026 report on the sale traces the building's recent history in a few paragraphs.
- Loons on a Limb. The Spurgeons owned the building and ran Loons on a Limb there. The Beacon ran a photo of it from 2005.
- The McLaughlins. Kevin and Barbara McLaughlin had their eye on the building from one of their first trips to the island. They were connected to the Spurgeons through a friend. They bought it in 2021.
- Mimi's 3rd Street Grille. The McLaughlins were about to renovate when Hurricane Ian hit. That storm brought them together with Bart DeStefano and Marco Meola, whose South Beach Bar & Grille had burned. The two moved their kitchen into the building and named the new place after their chef.
- The Gasparilla Inn. The Inn bought the building, which is still widely called the old 3rd Street Bistro, and the sale was expected to close the week of July 30, 2026. Cross gave credit to the McLaughlins: "What Barbara and Kevin did with that property opened our eyes to what it truly could be."
The Beacon reports the building's taxable value as $1,490,569. Cross didn't release the sale price. Before the sale, the space was being advertised for lease as a 1,500-square-foot interior with patio seating. That's small, and it helps explain the format the Inn has picked.
The room that kept a kitchen working
The Mimi's chapter shows what this building tends to be used for. South Beach's owners say Hurricane Ian destroyed their original structure on September 28, 2022. They opened Mimi's as a temporary restaurant within 90 days so their employees could keep working. The Englewood Sun later put the temporary rental at 18 months.
The rebuilt South Beach opened for full lunch and dinner the week of August 12, 2024, and that ended the stretch Mimi's had been covering. The restaurant's site now lists it as open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., at 760 Gulf Blvd. Mimi's was always meant to be a bridge, and it did that job.
The building spent those months carrying a restaurant through a gap in the calendar that nobody had planned for. The Inn now wants it to carry a restaurant through a gap that comes every year.
Where the new room fits in the Inn's week
The Inn's dining page currently lists six venues: The Pink Elephant, The Beach Club, BZ's, The Main Dining Room, The Inn Bakery, and Specialty Dining. Each one follows the Inn's resort rhythm in its own way. The schedules below are what the Inn posts on each venue's page.
| Venue | Posted schedule | Notes from the Inn's pages |
|---|---|---|
| The Main Dining Room | Breakfast daily, dinner Wednesday through Sunday | Closed for summer; resumes service October 8, 2026 |
| The Pink Elephant | Lunch Friday through Sunday, dinner Wednesday through Sunday | Was open during August 2024 |
| BZ's | Weekdays 2 p.m. to close, weekends noon to close | Lobby bar with small plates |
| The Beach Club | Lunch daily | Private, for Inn guests and members |
| The Inn Bakery | Wednesday through Sunday | Listed on the dining page |
| 310 East Railroad | Planned year-round | No name, no reservations at first |
The Inn's rates page sets out the hotel calendar the restaurants follow. Its fall season runs October 8 to December 19, 2026, and its late season runs May 1 to July 4, 2027. Every venue in the table is organized around those dates, whether it closes for summer, cuts back to certain days, or serves only guests and members.
The new restaurant is meant to run on a different calendar. Cross described the service. It will be "a contemporary pan-Asian restaurant that will be very Japanese forward," with sashimi, sushi, handcrafted rolls, small plates and larger entrees, and dishes will come out as they're ready instead of in heavy courses. Dishes served as they're ready, no reservations at first, and a small room with a patio all fit a place people stop into on a weeknight in August as easily as one in February.
Timing, as the island reopens around it
The plan is landing during the island's reopening week. The Boca Beacon's October 1 list of seasonal returns has Bella Vida and Aqua Boutique back on Monday, October 5, and Hudson's on Tuesday, October 6. Miller's Dockside and Sister's return Thursday, October 8, and Grande Stitches on Friday, October 9. Eagle Grille is due back in November. The Main Dining Room returns on October 8 too, the same day as Miller's Dockside and Sister's.
That reopening list is the strongest argument for the 310 East Railroad plan. Each fall the island announces who's coming back. A restaurant that never leaves won't need to be on that list. And it will sit in the village near the Inn and Gasparilla Golf Club, on a street that already has the building's own history of filling in when other places are closed.
What's confirmed, and what isn't yet
As of October 4, 2026, the public record looks like this:
- Confirmed: The Inn owns 310 East Railroad Ave. and plans a Japanese-forward pan-Asian restaurant there. It will be open year-round and will start without reservations.
- Confirmed: The Inn said it would hire about 25 people across front and back of house and start advertising the jobs in the fall.
- Not yet announced: a name, an opening date, hours or a menu. The Inn's dining page doesn't list a restaurant at the address yet. The only timing the Inn has given is a "fall opening."
- Unclear: The Inn's careers portal has a Chef de Cuisine posting with "Sushi Chef" in the job-title field, effective October 1, 2026. The posting doesn't say which outlet it's for.
The next solid update will most likely be a name on the Inn's dining page. Until then, everything public about the restaurant comes from Cross's description in July: a small room, food served as it's ready, no reservation book at first, and a door open in July as well as in January.
How long a place stays open each year changes how the streets around it feel, and that's the kind of local detail we follow closely on Gasparilla Island. If you'd like to talk about what the Inn's year-round plans mean for life near Palm Avenue and East Railroad, Jeff Moore and The Moore Team would be glad to sit down with you. Book a Private Consultation.
