The building at 738 SW Pine Island Road has already been through two barbecue concepts. It operated as Sonny's BBQ, then became Texas Tony's Rib & Brewhouse, which closed in 2025. This month, a Japanese concept called Sushi Masa signed the lease for the same 6,723-square-foot space, planning an all-you-can-eat sushi and hibachi menu as its fourth Florida location alongside outposts in Lakeland, Tampa and Pensacola.
If you have lived in South Cape for a while, that address probably does not register as a landmark. It is not on Cape Coral Parkway, where the cameras and ribbon-cutting scissors have been pointed all year. The address is on Pine Island Road, where the building has cycled through barbecue twice and is now set to house sushi. It is a separate example of restaurant activity elsewhere in Cape Coral.
Two booms, not one
Bimini Square opened in February, the neighborhood got a shiny new anchor, and restaurants followed. Restaurant activity this year is appearing in several parts of Cape Coral, including South Cape and Pine Island Road.
That activity takes two forms: a big, capitalized, multi-year development play, and smaller operators filling gaps on an existing commercial strip, one lease at a time, without waiting for anyone's grand opening. Understanding which one you are looking at tells you something the ribbon cuttings do not: where the next new place is likely to open.
The anchor, and the restaurant it was supposed to have
Bimini Square is the $125 million mixed-use project that Crown Development built on six acres just west of Four Freedoms Park, and its developer, Larry Nygard, cut the ribbon on February 5 of this year after more than two years of construction. City officials have called it a cornerstone of the South Cape entertainment district, and it is easy to see why: 218 residences, a Lee Health primary care clinic, a marina, and ground-floor retail and dining space all on one waterfront parcel.
One detail adds context to the restaurant changes. When the project broke ground back in 2023, the restaurant announced for the site was Deep Lagoon Seafood and Oyster House, a name Southwest Florida diners already knew. That is not what opened. What actually arrived this year is Bimini Basin Seafood & Cocktails, a new concept from Phelan Family Brands built specifically for this address. Company CEO Grant Phelan described pulling favorite menu items from four of the family's existing restaurant brands, Pinchers, Deep Lagoon, Hogfish Harry's and Keewaydin's, into a single 9,000-square-foot space designed so that diners sitting down do not see the ground, an infinity-edge effect over the basin. Alongside it, a locally owned breakfast and lunch spot called House of Omelets took the sidewalk-facing storefront.
The plan changed between groundbreaking and opening day, which is a useful reminder for anyone tracking what gets announced versus what actually shows up. As of now, both restaurants are open and welcoming guests, according to the city's own development page, even though construction on the marina and restaurant buildout was still finishing on the day Mayor John Gunter cut the ribbon. Gunter's framing at that ceremony was simple: the test for any project like this is whether it makes the city better tomorrow than it is today.
The corridor that did not wait
While Bimini Square worked through two years of permitting and construction, a different kind of restaurant growth was already happening nearby, without a developer's press release attached to it.
Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina opened on July 4, 2025, at the foot of the Cape Coral Bridge, right where Mandolin Canal meets the Caloosahatchee River. It runs ten food trucks around a central bar called The Helm Bar, with boat slips, more than 1,300 feet of riverfront boardwalk, and recurring events like the Sip & Shop Night Market and Wags on the Water that have made it a regular fixture rather than a novelty. It opened more than seven months before Bimini Square's ribbon cutting, on the same stretch of Cape Coral Parkway that had no marquee development attached to it at the time. It was a group of local investors, including a real estate broker and several Cape Coral business owners, betting on the corridor from the opposite direction.
Further east on Cape Coral Parkway, the same pattern shows up in smaller increments. Hibachi One opened in April, joining an existing run of independent spots that includes Tito's Cantina, Indian Breeze and Jungle Bird. Locals interviewed at the time described the change less as one big event and more as something arriving piece by piece, a new restaurant here, a new option there, until a stretch of road that used to feel like a pass-through started to feel like a destination in its own right.
What the Pine Island Road lease actually tells you
The Sushi Masa lease is a separate example of restaurant activity on Pine Island Road. The building there already has restaurant infrastructure, parking, and grease traps from previous tenants.
It is another detail to consider alongside a general Cape Coral restaurant roundup. The lease documents a new tenant taking over an existing restaurant space, but it does not establish why the operator chose this address. To follow Cape Coral's restaurant activity, look beyond the Parkway, too.
What is actually happening this month
For residents who want to see any of this in person rather than read about it, the calendar gives you a reason to go this week. South Cape's BaconFest Pub Crawl runs the Cape Coral Entertainment District on August 22, hitting several of the bars and restaurants clustered around the corridor described above. If you are already a regular at Slipaway on a Friday night, or you have been meaning to try the new hibachi spot on Parkway East, the pub crawl is a low-effort way to string a few of them together in one evening.
The takeaway for anyone watching Cape Coral's restaurant scene
The headline version of South Cape's year is a single number: $125 million, one ribbon cutting, one anchor development. A fuller picture of Cape Coral includes restaurant activity at Bimini Square, along Cape Coral Parkway and on Pine Island Road.
If you already live in Cape Coral, the broader picture is worth keeping in mind the next time a "coming soon" sign goes up somewhere unexpected. Sushi Masa's lease on Pine Island Road is one example of restaurant activity outside South Cape.
Haven Group tracks changes like this across Cape Coral and the rest of Southwest Florida because they shape what a neighborhood feels like to live in, long before they show up in any market report. If you are curious what a specific block near South Cape looks like right now, or want a straight read on how a corridor like this one is trending, Haven Group is happy to talk it through. Contact us for a private consultation.
