West Palm Beach's Regular Table Is Moving to North Railroad Avenue
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
"If you wanted to know who was who around West Palm Beach, that's where you went to lunch."
Bill Watson was talking about City Cellar. It opened in 2000 as part of CityPlace's original lineup, and it closed on May 24 after a 25-year run, the last of the development's first restaurants still operating. Watson founded the business in the early 1990s with Todd Herbst and Lisabet Summa. He told the Palm Beach Post that attorneys, judges, business leaders and journalists were regulars, and that the room was "the cafeteria for the courthouse."
Look at 2026 one restaurant at a time and you get a list of farewells and grand openings. Look at it as a whole and a pattern shows up. West Palm Beach lost several rooms that had held the same tables for decades. Meanwhile, a district about a mile north has spent the year filling with places designed to be used the same way, week after week, by people who live nearby. The Nora Hotel's scheduled opening on October 19 is when that district gets its seasonal anchor.
City Cellar didn't close alone. Morton's The Steakhouse served its last meals on May 31 after more than 30 years in the Phillips Point building. The Post described it as the place where "business deals unfolded over ribeyes and martinis" and where the city's professional class kept coming back. Grease Burger Bar closed on Clematis Street on Friday, July 17, after 17 years.
Together that's more than 70 years of operating history across three downtown addresses, gone within about seven weeks this summer. Each was a different kind of room: a courthouse lunch spot, a deal-making steakhouse, a burger bar on the city's best-known street. What they shared was longevity. They were the places where the same faces showed up again and again.
The NORA District sits just north of downtown, around North Railroad Avenue. Place Projects, NDT Development and Wheelock Street Capital are developing it. Its food and drink openings have come steadily, and in order:
Other places had opened too: Sunday Motor Co., Celis Juice Bar and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream all appear in the district's current directory. Non-dining businesses came next. Solidcore opened August 25, and LUCE Fine Jewelry held a preview opening on September 24.
Del Mar shows best what the district is trying to be. It's the first Palm Beach County restaurant from Ohio-based Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, which Floridians know best for Ocean Prime. The Post described Del Mar as built for flexibility and repeat visits, "less milestone dining and more 'we live nearby and feel like going out.'" The space covers roughly 12,000 square feet, including an open-air terrace and courtyard bar, with room for more than 340 guests. Mitchell said the company had watched West Palm Beach "for a long time" and chose Nora for its timing and momentum.
A weekly calendar has started to form around these businesses, and the district publishes it. Sunday Service at Sunday Motor Co. runs every Sunday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Happy Meal Mondays, Taco Tuesdays and Wine Wednesdays fill in the early part of the week. These are standing weekly events, which is how a place starts to have regulars.
Not every NORA opening has worked. Juliana's Pizza, which has Brooklyn roots and ties to Patsy Grimaldi, opened in November 2025 and closed in June. The Post noted online comments about its prices and the size of the space, but reported no official reason. Within a month the space at 875 N. Railroad Ave. had a new tenant lined up, a concept called Vesta.
The Nora Hotel is scheduled to open October 19, 2026. It's the first ground-up hotel outside New York City from BD Hotels, the group behind The Bowery, The Mercer and The Greenwich. BD Hotels, led by Richard Born and Ira Drukier, developed it with hotelier Sean MacPherson. The district's developers are also partners. The five-story building has 201 rooms, including 14 suites, and joins The Leading Hotels of the World. The design draws on Mediterranean and Spanish Colonial Revival style, with arched walkways, tile mosaics and a loggia garden at the entrance.
The date matters. Haute Living framed it against Palm Beach season, which runs from October through April, and described the hotel as a new base just north of downtown for the island's winter crowd.
Stephen Starr's Pastis is the ground-floor anchor. It's a brasserie of more than 13,000 square feet serving onion soup, escargots, steak frites and raw bar platters, with Pastis Privé next door for private events. Pastis is larger than Del Mar, which is the biggest restaurant in the district now. Pastis has not confirmed an opening day, though. As of October 1, Pastis West Palm Beach had announced only a fall 2026 opening, and STARR Restaurants' own page still lists the location as "Coming Soon." October 19 is the hotel's date. The restaurant's date may turn out to be the same, or it may come later.
Behind the hotel, the NORA pipeline runs into next year. Here is where each one stands:
The downtown closures haven't left empty blocks. The replacements so far tend to be smaller and more focused.
Garden Butcher opened June 15 at South Olive Avenue and Gardenia Street, in the former Trailways bus station, with chef-owner Erin Leeds. In June 2025 it had been expected to open "in the fall," so it arrived about nine months late but it did open. David Chang's Fuku opened July 16 at 407 S. Rosemary Ave. in CityPlace, a few minutes' walk from City Cellar's former address. On Clematis, 212 Bagel Co. from Max Ayoub and Gus Lange is slated for November in the 500 block.
The largest downtown project is still on the calendar. SubCulture Group's Hacienda, a food hall of roughly 13,000 square feet on Clematis with rooftop seating and an outdoor patio, is listed for fall 2026. The roundup reporting that window notes that dates can change. Hacienda would be about the same size as Pastis. The two biggest openings on the season's list are a downtown food hall and a NORA brasserie, and neither has a fixed date yet.
The city's fall calendar puts the hotel's opening right in the middle of a busy month:
The Kravis notes that its dates and details can change. NORA itself hasn't posted any dated events for October through December yet. For now, its season calendar is the weekly lineup: Sunday Service, Taco Tuesdays and Wine Wednesdays, plus whatever night the brasserie finally opens.
If the north end of downtown is changing how you think about your own address, John Reynolds & Randi Binder can talk through what this season's openings around North Railroad Avenue mean for properties nearby, starting with a free home valuation.
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