If you live on Lido, Bird Key, or the near bayfront, you already know the Circle. You know which corner had Tommy Bahama and which had Le Colonne, and you probably still give directions using storefronts that closed in 2024. That mental map is out of date. The Circle in 2026 is not so much recovering from Helene and Milton as being reshuffled by them, with long-tenured tenants moving one door down and new operators moving in behind. This is a walking guide to what actually sits where right now, written for the people who plan to eat there on a Tuesday.
The reshuffle, in one table
The single most useful thing to know about the Circle this year is that three of its most familiar addresses changed hands or names inside twelve months. If you have not been paying attention since last season, the layout below is the fastest way back in.
| Address | Was | Is now |
|---|---|---|
| 22 S. Boulevard of the Presidents | Le Colonne | Nōnnō Umberto (opened early January 2026) |
| 300 John Ringling Blvd | Tommy Bahama (through late 2024) | Pinchers (targeting October 2026) |
| 465 John Ringling Blvd | Shore | Tommy Bahama (relocated post-hurricanes) |
Everything else on the Circle is downstream of those three moves.
Nōnnō Umberto: the same family, a different room
Le Colonne closed after the 2024 storm season. The Salustri family kept working through the interim by running an Italian food truck, Buonissimo Mobile Italian Kitchen, while they figured out what to do with the brick-and-mortar. What reopened in January is not a restoration. It is a rebrand.
Amber Mayner and Simone Salustri decided to reopen the restaurant under a new name, recognizing the legacy of Simone's father, Umberto Salustri, who opened the original Le Colonne. The address is the same. The lineage is the same. The room, the menu framing, and the name are new.
The opening was not quiet. The owners expected a fairly quiet soft opening the first week of January, but staff served more than 250 people on the first night, growing to 800 people over the course of the first week. For a Circle restaurant reopening in what is technically shoulder season, that is a signal about pent-up demand from residents who never really replaced Le Colonne in their rotation. If you tried once in January and could not get a table, try again on a weeknight now that the ribbon-cutting rush has settled.
Reservations run through 941-556-9353. The restaurant is billed as an Italian seafood and steakhouse, which is a wider lane than the old menu ran in.
Pinchers is coming, and it is not a Tommy Bahama replacement
The bigger structural change is at 300 John Ringling Blvd, the two-story corner Tommy Bahama vacated in late 2024. The new tenant is Pinchers, and residents should know two things about it before they form an opinion.
First, it is not a one-off. Pinchers is among more than a dozen concepts within the Phelan Family Brands portfolio. The company was established in 1997 with the debut of Pinchers Crab Shack in Bonita Springs and has expanded over the years to include other concepts like Deep Lagoon and Texas Tony's Rib & Brewhouse. Pinchers has 10 restaurants along the Gulf Coast, from Naples to Wesley Chapel, and the closest to St. Armands are in Lakewood Ranch and Venice, about 14 and 20 miles away, respectively. The Circle location closes a real geographic gap in the brand's footprint.
Second, the vice president of marketing has been explicit about the register the room is meant to hit. The atmosphere will be "relaxed" and "always family-friendly," with an expectation that many guests will arrive in flip-flops. That is a different Circle patron than Tommy Bahama's linen-shirt lunch crowd. Whether that shifts foot traffic on the north arc of the roundabout is the interesting question for anyone who owns a condo within a five-minute walk.
On timing, the company plans to begin serving customers this fall. "We are shooting to be open in October," Kevin Rooney, vice president of marketing and advertising for Phelan Family Brands, told the Business Observer. The lease itself is not modest. Pinchers signed for more than 8,000 square feet at 300 John Ringling Blvd. in Sarasota, where it plans to begin serving customers this fall. Business Observer, June 30, 2026 has the full lease context, including that the property traded to its current ownership group for $8 million in 2022.
Tommy Bahama did not leave. It slid across the Circle.
The detail residents miss most often is where Tommy Bahama went. It did not close the market. Until late 2024, the location at 300 John Ringling Blvd. was the home of Tommy Bahama, which relocated to 465 John Ringling Blvd. in the former Shore restaurant spot after the hurricanes. If you are walking guests around the Circle and default to the old address, you will send them to a construction hoarding. The current door is on the other side of the roundabout, in what used to be Shore.
That single relocation is why the whole 300 John Ringling story matters. It freed a landmark corner and set the chain reaction that ends with Pinchers in October.
The resort side of the equation
Cross Ben Franklin Drive and the operator changes look different. The Lido Beach Resort has been rebranding under the Opal Collection banner as Cirque St. Armands, and the food and beverage program is now a three-outlet cluster. Cirque St. Armands is home to Ringside, which also services Midway, the lobby bar lounge, and Ringmaster, the pool bar. Expect inventive dishes in the main restaurant, then light bites and daring cocktails in the bars.
One floor above that, Drift Kitchen & Bar sits on the 8th floor of the Lido Beach Resort, featuring floor to ceiling views of the Gulf of Mexico, open daily for breakfast, happy hour, and dinner, with a menu that emphasizes fresh seafood and contemporary American fare. For residents, the practical read is that you now have a walk-in breakfast option with a Gulf view that does not require a car or a Circle parking loop.
Worth pairing with the Lido Key Residents Association's own social calendar. LKRA has been rotating its Meet & Greets to Daiquiri Deck on the Circle, and the group's 2026 Annual Breakfast Meeting sits at 9 a.m. on Saturday, February 21, on the 8th floor of the Lido Beach Resort, which puts residents in the same room as Drift's kitchen anyway.
Off the Circle, on the calendar
If the reshuffle above is the structural story, the events below are the reason to keep the guide bookmarked. These are dated for 2026 and worth putting on the fridge.
- St. Armands Circle Art Festival, January 24–25, 2026. The two-day festival runs 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. across the Circle itself, which means residential streets north of Ringling become the de facto overflow parking. Plan groceries accordingly.
- Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix, off Lido Key. The annual Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix takes place in the waters off Lido Key. Bring earplugs if you are on the beach side of the island.
- Summer Circus Spectacular, July 1 – August 8, 2026. The Ringling Museum presents its Summer Circus Spectacular in collaboration with The Circus Arts Conservatory of Sarasota. Show times are 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Tickets are $20 adults and $15 for children 12 and under, at the Historic Asolo Theater, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota. A reliable rainy-afternoon plan for grandchildren week.
- Siesta Key Crystal Classic Sand Sculpting Festival, November 13–16, 2026. Off-island, but the Ringling Causeway traffic pattern from Lido to Siesta is worth budgeting for.
What the reshuffle actually says
Pull back from the individual restaurants and there is a single point worth carrying home. The Circle after Helene and Milton is not thinning out. It is trading tenants inside its own footprint. A family-owned Italian house rebranded rather than closed. A national retail flagship moved across the roundabout rather than leaving. A ten-location seafood group filled the resulting corner rather than letting it sit dark. For anyone who owns on Lido, Bird Key, or the near bayfront, that is a more useful signal about the health of the walk-to district than any single opening story on its own.
The people who lived here through 2024 already know which tenants they miss. What is new is knowing which of them are still on the Circle, just at a different address.
If you own a home within walking distance of any of this and want a considered conversation about how the Circle's tenant mix is showing up in bayfront and beach-adjacent property values, Sarasota Beach To Bay welcomes you to Schedule a Private Consultation.
