"Tough summer."
— Edward Zaki, as quoted by Bluewater Healthy Living
That's how Edward Zaki, co-owner of Adeline, described the months that led to closing the doors at 1920 Hillview St on October 4, 2025. Extreme heat, lingering effects from a rough hurricane season, and fewer international visitors all played a part. What makes the story worth telling isn't that a restaurant closed. Restaurants close every season in every Florida city. What makes it worth telling is what Zaki did next, in the exact same room.
If you live near Osprey Avenue or Hillview Street, you've watched this stretch of Sarasota's oldest shopping district cycle through openings and closings for years. Two restaurants opened within a few months of each other, less than a block apart, during 2025, with different dining formats. Reading them side by side tells you something about this neighborhood's changing dining options that a simple list of new restaurants never will.
What Closed, and Why
Adeline had a real pedigree. Chef Drew Adams rebranded the space from Meliora in late 2024, and his inventive New American cooking drew praise from both the Tampa Bay Times and the New York Times. It was the kind of restaurant a neighborhood points to with pride, a special-occasion destination built around a tasting-menu sensibility.
But special-occasion destinations depend on a certain rhythm: steady reservations, a willing audience for formal courses, and enough seasonal traffic to survive the slow months. Zaki cited the combination of heat, hurricane fallout, and a drop in international visitors as the reasons the math stopped working. A restaurant built for special occasions needs those occasions to keep showing up, and that summer, they didn't show up often enough.
What Replaced It
Zaki didn't leave the space empty. On December 1, 2025, the same address reopened as Mimi Brasserie & Speakeasy, co-owned by Zaki and Drew Adams, the same chef who ran Adeline. The concept, though, is a different animal entirely. The brasserie serves comforting European plates like steak frites and mushroom croquettes. After 5 p.m., guests can slip through the dining room into a back-room speakeasy that takes no reservations, pouring cocktails built around botanical gin, ginger, and hibiscus.
Look at what actually changed. Adeline asked diners to commit to a formal evening. Mimi asks for something looser: stop in for a meal, come back for a spontaneous cocktail, treat the place like a neighborhood fixture rather than a milestone dinner. The same owners and chef are associated with a different concept in the same space.
A Restaurant a Block Away With a Different Format
In August 2025, the same year Adeline closed, a different restaurant opened one block over at 1830 S. Osprey Ave. Alma de España took over the former Ka Papa Cuisine space with Chef Elier Rodriguez, a Cuban native whose resume includes training at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Atlanta and a stint at La Côte at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. He was recognized by Michelin in 2024, so this isn't a chef without ambition or craft.
Alma de España is built around tapas, small shareable plates served off a wood-fired grill imported from Spain. It runs at a serious price point and takes reservations, but the format is fundamentally different from a tasting menu. Guests order a handful of plates, share them, and control the pace and cost of the evening themselves.
That difference in format is one part of the neighborhood’s broader dining mix, alongside the businesses that have remained through years of turnover.
The Anchors That Never Left
None of this turnover happened in a vacuum. Southside Village has carried a steady core of businesses through every cycle of openings and closings for decades. Morton's Gourmet Market has served the neighborhood for more than 50 years and remains the kind of place where residents start a Saturday. Libby's Neighborhood Brasserie has held its spot with a French-forward menu of brioche grilled cheese and chicken paillard. Gecko's on Hillview keeps its regulars. Down at 1812 S. Osprey Ave, Osteria Southside pairs Origin Craft Beer & Pizza founder Rami Nehme with Mozzarella Fella owners Michael and Victoria Calore, serving Italian food in a format that, notably, also leans toward sharing rather than formal courses.
Even Lucky 8 Luncheonette, another Zaki property just steps from Mimi, built its reputation on chef Mark Majorie's fried chicken rather than a chef's tasting menu. These businesses offer a range of approaches to dining, including shareable dishes and more casual options. Recent openings and closures have added to the mix of formats in the neighborhood.
Southside Village grew up as a neighborhood for teachers, nurses, and doctors living side by side, with Southside Elementary anchoring family life since the 1920s. That kind of everyday, mixed-income foundation tends to produce commercial districts built around routine rather than spectacle.
What to Know If You're Eating There This Week
A few practical notes worth knowing if the last year of change has you unsure where things stand:
- Mimi's brasserie side serves food from 2 to 11 p.m., but the speakeasy in back doesn't take reservations and doesn't open until 5. If you want the cocktail room on a weekend, plan to walk in and wait.
- Alma de España does take reservations, which matters if you're planning a group dinner around shared plates rather than a quick bite.
- Morton's Gourmet Market is still the easiest starting point for a Saturday morning in the neighborhood, same as it's been for half a century.
- If you're timing a visit around neighborhood events, the annual Holiday Stroll remains Southside Village's signature community gathering, drawing residents out to the same stretch of Osprey and Hillview that's seen all this turnover.
The bigger takeaway isn't which restaurant to pick tonight. Recent openings, closures and changes in format have reshaped Southside Village's restaurant row. That's useful to know whether you're deciding where to eat this weekend or trying to understand the neighborhood's changing dining options.
If you're curious how shifts like this one connect to what's happening in the surrounding streets, from home values to what a longtime local knows about a block you're considering, the team at Stone & Coast Realty Group keeps an eye on Sarasota's neighborhoods the same way they keep an eye on this one. Reach out anytime you want a local read on where you live or where you're thinking about landing next.
