The Old Northeast Weekend Loop Just Got Its South End Back

For a couple of years, the bayfront walk south from Coffee Pot Park had a middle and a beginning but no real arrival. You could time a sunrise around the manatees, cross under the palms, and pass North Shore Park, then find yourself at the Vinoy's locked garden wondering where dinner used to be. That gap is closing. With Elliott Aster open inside the Vinoy since May 2025 and Old Northeast Tavern set to reopen this year, the neighborhood's Saturday routine, the one built around a walk and a meal, works again in both directions.

This is a post for people who already live here. You know Coffee Pot Bayou. You know which stretch of North Shore Drive has the best shade at 8 a.m. What is worth catching up on is what changed while you were watching the scaffolding go up.

The thesis, plainly

The Historic Old Northeast has always been a corridor, not a grid. Residents move along the water, then cut inland for coffee, dinner, or a walk to the Palladium. When Old Northeast Tavern went dark for renovations and the Vinoy sat behind construction fencing, both ends of that corridor lost their anchors at the same time. What is different in 2026 is that both anchors are coming back, and the daily loop residents have been improvising for nearly two years is about to feel whole again.

Morning starts at the north end

Coffee Pot Park sits at First Street NE and 31st Avenue NE. Kayak ramp, boat ramp, playground, shaded benches along the bayou. If you own a trailer, you already know the parking spots are usually taken before 9 a.m. on weekends, and the surrounding blocks are the practical fallback.

The wildlife calendar is what makes the north end worth building a morning around:

• Winter: manatees drift into the warmer shallows. The reliable spot is Coffee Pot Boulevard and 23rd Avenue NE, where fresh water from Crescent Lake meets the saline of the bayou and the animals come to drink.
• Spring: courting manatees roll through the shallow water in small groups.
• Summer: paddleboarders are on the water before the heat sets in, usually before 8 a.m.
• Year-round: pelicans, Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Green Herons, laughing gulls, red-eared sliders sunning on boat ramps, and the occasional pod of dolphins working fish against the seawalls closer to evening.

If you want coffee before the walk, Black Crow Coffee shares the 1925 building at 201 Seventh Avenue North with Old Northeast Tavern and Old Northeast Pizza. It has been the practical staging point for morning walks through the neighborhood for years.

The middle: two miles that connect everything

The wide sidewalk along Coffee Pot Bayou is part of a roughly two-mile walking and biking path that follows North Shore Drive south from the park, past North Shore Park's small white-sand beach, and into the downtown waterfront near the St. Pete Pier. Same path connects north toward Weedon Island Preserve for cyclists willing to keep going.

Somewhere in the middle, if you are inclined to detour a block west, you hit the Gizella Kopsick Palm Arboretum. Two acres. More than 500 palms and cycads. Over 150 species. Paved walkways, a shaded gazebo, wooden benches. It is not a destination in itself for most residents, but it is the kind of pause that makes the walk feel less linear.

The neighborhood context matters here too. The Old Northeast holds nearly 3,000 historic buildings and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. Granada Terrace, the pocket of Mediterranean-style homes along Coffee Pot Boulevard originally developed by C. Perry Snell, was designated a Local Historic District in 1988. When you are walking the corridor, you are moving through a protected fabric, not just a pretty one, and that is part of why the streetscape stays consistent from decade to decade.

Evening: the south end that was missing

The Vinoy Resort and Golf Club sits at 501 Fifth Avenue Northeast, a 1925 Mediterranean Revival building at the point where the waterfront path bends toward downtown. For years, it was the visual anchor of the walk and functionally nothing. You reached it and looped back.

That changed on May 20, 2025, when Elliott Aster opened inside the hotel's original dining hall. The restaurant is part of a $50 million renovation and a collaboration between the Vinoy's new ownership and the Chicago-based Boka Restaurant Group. The chef, Lee Wolen, is Michelin-starred and was a 2025 James Beard Award semifinalist, with El Bulli, Eleven Madison Park, and the Four Seasons Palm Beach on his resume. What he built for the Vinoy is not showy. The menu leans on wood-fired steaks, handmade pastas, and a rotating antipasti bar.

For residents, the practical shift is this: the walk south now has an arrival. You can plan a sunset stroll from Coffee Pot Park, cross North Shore, and end with a table instead of a U-turn.

When the tavern reopens

The other half of the loop is closer than most people realize. Old Northeast Tavern, closed for nearly two years for renovations, is expected to reopen later this year, according to co-owner Bob Wareham. He and business partner Mark Brindle have owned the tavern and the neighboring pizzeria since 2008. The tavern originally opened in 2006, and the building itself dates to 1925, back when the neighborhood was still known as North Shore.

A few things residents should know before it reopens:

1. The footprint is bigger. During the closure, the tavern and Old Northeast Pizza combined into one connected space, using the old game room as an expanded dining area with several flat-screen TVs.
2. Full liquor license. The tavern held the license since February 2024 but had not been able to use it. Cocktails will be on the menu when the doors reopen.
3. New menu items. Wareham has said burgers and fries are on the way, a first for the tavern. The usual suspects, including the Reuben and the chicken and plantain quesadilla, are expected to stay.
4. Same building, same block. Black Crow Coffee stays in the shared 1925 building. The corner has served as pharmacy, market, diner, and restaurant over the decades. This is its next chapter, not a new one.

The loop at a glance

What is still not finished

The Vinoy's renovation is a phased project, and the parts residents will feel most, Paul's Landing at the pool and upgrades to the Vinoy Esplanade on the waterfront side, do not have confirmed opening timelines as of May 2026. The corridor has its anchor back, but the anchor is still being built out.

Farther off, the neighborhood's own calendar has one date worth holding: the HONNA Candlelight Tour of Homes returns in December. Recent editions have run a Sunday afternoon into evening, roughly 3 to 8 p.m., with a Refreshment Station on Cherry Street NE and live seasonal music. It sold out last year, and it is the closest thing the neighborhood has to a shared living-room night.

The point

You already live in the Old Northeast. You did not need this post to tell you the walk is beautiful or the streets are brick. What you did need was a straight answer to a small, practical question: is the loop working again? For the first time since 2024, the answer is close to yes. Elliott Aster gives the south end a table. Old Northeast Tavern will give the north end its weeknight back. In between, the same manatees, the same palms, the same 1925 buildings.

If you are curious what any of this means for your own home's value on this side of the bay, or if you know someone whose Old Northeast plans depend on timing the market rather than the tide, Homes by Nanette is a good first conversation. Let's Connect.