At least three storefronts in Old Naples swapped names in the past year. The same three owners were behind all of them, on both sides of the sign.
That is not the story most people tell about downtown Naples right now. The easy read is that a wave of restaurants closed and a wave of new ones replaced them, the normal churn of a hot commercial strip. But look closer at where most of this happened and a different pattern shows up: the operators didn't leave the avenue. They introduced new concepts, sometimes at the same address and sometimes elsewhere on Fifth Avenue South. Fifth Avenue South has held around 20 restaurants for years, and its most visible changes over the past twelve months came almost entirely from inside that existing group, not from outside it.
Two names sit at the center of it. Chef Vincenzo Betulia ran The French Rustique Brasserie on Fifth Avenue South for years before converting the same space into Tulia Italian Steak, adding an outdoor bar and shifting the menu toward Italian steak and pasta. He didn't vacate the address. He changed what happens inside it. A few blocks over, the operator behind Roma Italian Bistro & Pizzeria relocated into the former KJ Sushi space and relaunched it as Ottimo on 5th Cucina & Bar, same owner, same street, new concept and a new building around it.
BiCE Never Actually Left
The most instructive renovation in the neighborhood belongs to BiCE Ristorante, and it's a useful case for how much can change behind a familiar name. BiCE closed after the 2024-2025 season for a full interior renovation and reopened December 22, 2025, at its longtime address, 300 Fifth Avenue South. The timing wasn't arbitrary. BiCE Group, the family behind the original Milan trattoria that Beatrice "Bice" Ruggeri opened in 1926, is marking its 100th anniversary this year, and the Naples location got a redesign to match: a sculptural white bar, navy velvet stools, hand-painted countryside murals, and a bougainvillea-wrapped terrace that now seats 81 alongside a 90-seat main dining room.
Stefano Frittella shares ownership of the Naples location with the Ruggeri family. He's the same restaurateur behind Caffé Milano, La Trattoria, and Vergina, all on Fifth Avenue South. BiCE reads as an independent, century-old Italian import. It's also one more address on a street where a small number of names keep recurring.
Here's a quick reference for what actually changed at street level:
| Address | Was | Now | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 300 Fifth Ave S | BiCE (pre-renovation) | BiCE (renovated, reopened Dec. 22, 2025) | Ruggeri family / Stefano Frittella |
| Fifth Ave S | The French Rustique Brasserie | Tulia Italian Steak | Vincenzo Betulia |
| Former KJ Sushi space | Roma Italian Bistro & Pizzeria (relocated) | Ottimo on 5th Cucina & Bar | Same operator as Roma |
| 360 12th Ave S | The Bevy | La Salière | Stefano Frittella |
What's Actually New
Not everything on the avenue is a name change in disguise. Barrio Taqueria opened February 18, 2026 at 539 Fifth Ave S, the second Naples restaurant from Ignacio Muñoz, who also owns Unidos at 1 Ninth Street South. The opening menu runs tacos, empanadas, a quesadilla, and a Barrio Caesar topped with Cotija and charred corn, served from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Six days before that, All Too Well Gourmet Sandwiches opened February 12, 2026 at the corner of Fifth and Eighth, a counter-service concept from Chef Mitchell Jamra with roots in Chicago's Lincoln Park. And Slice Shop opened at 720 Fifth Avenue South as the avenue's first by-the-slice pizzeria, something the street had genuinely never had before.
Meg Stepanian, executive director of the Fifth Avenue South Business Improvement District, described this layer of openings as complementary rather than competitive with the avenue's white-tablecloth tier, adding that a mix of accessible and upscale dining creates a more resilient business environment for the street as a whole. The pattern that emerges is two-track. At the top of the market, the same handful of owners are recycling their own real estate into new concepts. At the counter-service level, genuinely new operators are filling a gap that didn't exist on Fifth Avenue a few years ago.
The Name Keeps Showing Up on 12th Avenue Too
Frittella's footprint extends past Fifth Avenue itself. La Salière, which had its soft opening November 7, 2025 at 360 12th Avenue South in the former Bevy space, isn't a new concept for him. It's his oldest one. La Salière was the first restaurant Frittella ever opened, in Monte Carlo in 1982, and the Naples version mirrors that original menu. The La Salière sign in Old Naples represents the oldest restaurant in his portfolio.
He's not finished adding addresses. In October 2025, the Naples Design Review Board approved Avenue 31, a three-story mixed-use building planned for 472 Fifth Avenue South, on the site currently occupied by La Pescheria, an Italian seafood restaurant that has been there since December 2018. The plan calls for a ground-floor restaurant named after Frittella's Monte Carlo flagship at 31 Avenue Princesse Grace, with two condominiums on the second floor and a penthouse on top. No opening date has been set, but once it's built, that's another Fifth Avenue address tracing back to the same family. Counting just the restaurants on Fifth Avenue South itself, BiCE, Caffé Milano, La Trattoria, Vergina, and the future Avenue 31 come to five of the roughly twenty restaurants the avenue has held for years, close to a quarter of the street tracing back to one operator group before La Salière is even added to the tally.
Third Street's Own Season Opener
The most consequential opening for anyone who lives within walking distance of Third Street South arrived from a different direction entirely. The Olde Naples Hotel, at 200 Broad Avenue South, opened its first phase in May 2026 with Annie's Bistro, Bar & Bakery and 50 of its eventual 109 rooms, on a site tied to the original 1889 Naples Hotel. The rooftop pool followed with that first phase, and the rest of the property continued taking shape through the summer. The redevelopment itself, of what had been the Plaza on Third Street shopping center, took more than a decade, led by the Camalier family, longtime Naples residents, in partnership with Ocean Properties Hotels & Resorts under the Opal Collection banner.
The street's older institution keeps its own rhythm regardless of what opens around it. The Third Street South Farmers Market, running every Saturday from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. behind Tommy Bahama, was established in 1994 and now draws nearly 60 vendors, most of them local growers and independent merchants rather than national chains. And the district's Autumn Sidewalk Sale runs Thursday, October 15 through Sunday, October 18, a French-themed weekend when merchants along Third Street South clear space for new inventory. It's two weeks out from now, which puts it right at the point in the calendar when the avenue and the side streets both start filling back in for the season.
What ties Fifth Avenue and Third Street together this year isn't a single new restaurant or a single new hotel. It's that the district's most visible changes came from people who were already invested in it, spending money to reinvent concepts at familiar addresses or bring them to new ones rather than leaving the district. A storefront changing hands can mean something didn't work; when an established operator stays in the neighborhood and opens a new concept, the sign change can mean the opposite.
If you're the kind of person who notices when the sign on a familiar corner changes overnight, Pat Wilkins has been tracking these blocks long enough to know which changes are cosmetic and which ones matter. Schedule a Consultation if you'd like a longer conversation about how Old Naples keeps reinventing itself one storefront at a time.
