If you drove Coral Ridge Drive last July, you passed a shuttered Angelo Elia and probably kept going. Drive that same stretch now and Sawgrass Center reads like a different address, with a Napa-leaning restaurant opening the first week of August and a run of new tenants signed in a plaza that spent years going quiet after 8 p.m.
Two miles east, the corner of University and Sample is finally doing what the city promised it would do for two decades. The point of this post is not that Coral Springs has new restaurants. It is that the summer of 2026 is the first summer where a resident can plan a Friday night, a Saturday morning, and a Sunday lunch inside two specific corridors, without driving to Fort Lauderdale or Boca. Those corridors are Sawgrass Center on Coral Ridge Drive and the Cornerstone block downtown, and they are pulling the rest of the city's dining pattern toward them.
The Sawgrass Center Turn
The most visible change is at 5920 Coral Ridge Drive, the old Angelo Elia Pizza, Bar & Tapas space. Ember & Vine, a new all-day dining concept from P Hospitality Management, is opening in Coral Springs on August 3, 2026, offering breakfast and dinner options with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients and globally influenced flavors. The team took over the former Angelo Elia location at the Sawgrass Center and refreshed the space with updated finishes, new design elements, enhanced bar and dining areas, and a redesigned layout intended to encourage gathering and social dining.
A few details give the opening more weight than a typical restaurant swap. The coffee program features beans roasted locally by 360F Roasters, a Coral Springs-based roastery. The concept comes from the same group behind Eddie & Vinny's Coastal Italian and Dear Olivia, and the company also operates Corvina Seafood & Grill, Prezzo Boca Raton, and Amante's in Deerfield Beach. That is a Broward operator planting its third county restaurant in a plaza most residents had written off, which suggests the plaza itself is being reappraised.
If you are visiting in the first week, there is a small opening perk worth knowing. Guests visiting between Aug. 3 and Aug. 9 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. will receive a complimentary house cold brew or drip coffee.
What Cornerstone Actually Delivered This Year
For years, "downtown Coral Springs" was a phrase the city used and residents smiled at. That gap is closing. The Cornerstone site sits at the corner of University Drive and West Sample Road, and it is the reason a walkable evening block is finally forming here. Rather than list every announcement, look at the numbers side by side.
| Cornerstone at a glance | Figure |
|---|---|
| Site size | 7 acres |
| Planned residential units | 520 |
| Planned hotel rooms | 142 |
| Retail space planned | 106,000 sf |
| Medical office | 75,000 sf |
| Modera Phase I units already delivered | 351 apartments with 14,600 sf ground-floor retail |
| Modera Phase II (preleasing / early 2026 move-ins) | 353 apartments, 32,280 sf retail |
The retail follow-through is what residents will actually feel this summer. Mitch's Downtown Bagel Cafe has made its Coral Springs return, with its new location in the Cornerstone development at 3334 N. University Drive now open, serving locally made bagels and spreads alongside matzo ball soup, omelettes, French toast and pastrami sandwiches. That is a weekend-morning anchor Coral Springs did not have twelve months ago.
The second downtown anchor is on the way. Big Whiskey's is set to open a new location in the Cornerstone development in downtown Coral Springs in 2026, the second of three planned South Florida locations by the Nosnaws Corporation. The menu features more than 120 whiskeys and American comfort food, and the first Florida location opened at Sawgrass Mills Mall in Davie in January 2025. No firm opening date has been shared for the Coral Springs restaurant, so treat it as fall or later rather than a sure summer plan.
One more downtown line to track. A developer has submitted plans for the city's tallest building, called 32 Hundred, an 11-story project atop Downtown Coral Springs' Bank of America Building with 300 units planned on the west side of the property. Facing University Drive, 32 Hundred will sit adjacent to Modera Coral Springs on a 3.06-acre lot. That is not summer-2026 news for daily life, but it is the reason the retail leases downtown keep signing.
The Openings That Don't Fit Either Corridor
A short list of names worth knowing that sit outside the two main clusters:
- Flora's Italian Eatery, operated by the family behind Flora Fine Foods, recently opened across from the Florida Panthers IceDen with a mix of food stations, market goods, and an upstairs bar and kitchen.
- Jalsa Indian Modern Kitchen has soft-opened at 2238 N. University Drive, taking over the former Honest Indian Vegetarian Restaurant location, with vegetarian favorites like palak paneer and chana masala on the menu.
- NYC Halal Eats, a franchise known for New York City-inspired dishes, is opening its first Florida location on University Drive, bringing platters, gyros, and Philly cheesesteaks; the interiors will feature bold designs and graffiti-inspired art, and an official opening date has not been announced.
Read those addresses together and the pattern is clear. University Drive is doing the heavy lifting between the two corridors, and Coral Ridge Drive is where the destination dining is landing. If you live west of University, your ten-minute radius just got denser.
A Summer Weekend Using Both Corridors
If you have not built a routine around these openings yet, here is one worth borrowing:
- Saturday morning at Mitch's Downtown Bagel Cafe in the Cornerstone development, then a walk across to the Modera retail frontage to see what has moved into Phase II ground floor.
- Sunday, July 19: Coral Springs Collectorfest Summer Edition, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., 12,000 sq ft of vintage and modern toys, Hot Wheels, retro gaming, comics, and pop culture goods, kids under 12 free with free parking and free Hot Wheels for kids. The venue is the Fort Lauderdale Marriott Coral Springs.
- Late July into August: dinner at Ember & Vine at Sawgrass Center once opening week settles, ideally on a night you can compare their bar program to whatever you last had at Eddie & Vinny's.
- Friday, July 31 at 2 p.m.: Mean Girls, the Musical at Coral Springs Center for the Arts, part of the Next Stop Broadway summer program in which every camper performs in a full-scale production.
- A weekday lunch at Flora's Italian Eatery when you are near the Panthers IceDen, if only to see what an Eataly-style layout looks like at Coral Springs scale.
That itinerary uses three different centers of gravity in the city and drives fewer than eight miles total.
What This Actually Means If You Own a Home Here
A resident post is usually about food. This one has a real estate footnote worth reading. The Cornerstone build-out is not just a lifestyle upgrade. It is a shift in what "downtown" means for a city of more than 130,000 residents that was incorporated in 1963 as a planned community designed with suburban efficiency in mind, where walkable urban life was never part of the original blueprint.
When a suburb builds its first true walkable evening block, the buyers who show up two and three years later start asking different questions. They ask about proximity to the Cornerstone corner. They ask which streets connect to it without crossing Sample. They ask whether the Sawgrass Center revival has staying power or whether it is one restaurant deep. Those are the conversations already starting in listing appointments this summer.
None of that is a reason to buy or sell today. It is a reason to know your address's relationship to these two corridors, because the map of desirable Coral Springs is being redrawn in real time by lease signings, not by MLS activity.
If you want a candid read on what the Cornerstone build-out and the Sawgrass Center turn mean for your specific street, Amie Estates is happy to walk through it with you. Schedule a free consultation and bring the questions your neighbors are already asking.
