An Italian market and restaurant are planned for the large restaurant space at Bayfront Naples that most recently was Southern Kitchen & Raw Bar.
The new restaurant and market will be owned and operated by Rudy Ambrosi and his sons, Michael and Alex, who have operated Ambrosi & Sons since 2020 in an East Naples industrial park. Ambrosi & Sons sells imported Italian gourmet food products, wine, gift baskets, restaurant supplies and other exclusive items at 3910 Domestic Ave. The local business was named Best Specialty Market in Collier County this year by readers of Gulfshore Life magazine.
At Bayfront, the Ambrosis expect to offer fresh pasta, wines by the glass and a full bar but they don’t want to reveal too much yet about their future restaurant and market.
“It’s going to be completely unique in the true sense of the word unique, which means one of a kind,” Rudy Ambrosi said. “So, when it opens, it’s going to be nobody’s idea of what an Italian market is, so they’re going to just have to wait and see.”
The new venue is still many months away from opening. “We take over the lease in October but likely opening first quarter 2024,” Michael Ambrosi texted.
Rudy Ambrosi said the best-case scenario is that they will have all the equipment they need in by November.
“I have all kinds of machinery coming — display cases and pasta machines and wine machines,” he said. “Everything’s coming from Italy and it’s all custom-made. It’s going to be a big transformation from the outside, the inside, everything.”
Southern Kitchen, which opened as Southern Style Kitchen & Cocktails in December 2019, permanently closed earlier this month at 492 Bayfront Place, near the intersection of Goodlette-Frank Road and U.S. 41 East in Naples. The restaurant space is owned by Kevin Stoneburner, who also developed and owns the Bayfront mixed-use development, as well as Stoney’s Steakhouse and K-Rico Mexican Grill in Bayfront.
The Ambrosis’ restaurant will be at least the third Italian restaurant in that 8,000-square-foot unit at Bayfront in more than 20 years. Il Bellagio was the first to open there in 2002. The Grill Club, a short-lived, all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbecue followed Il Bellagio before longtime local restaurateur Chrissy Bianchi opened Bianchi’s at Bayfront in 2008. Before Stoneburner opened Stoney’s Stone Crab and then Southern Style there, Chef Charles Mereday operated two different concepts: Alto Jazz Kitchen and Mereday’s Brasserie.