- Orlando’s Selam Ethiopian & Eritrean Cuisine was named to Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat in 2020. The list is based on ratings and reviews on Yelp’s website. Selam was our Foodster Award winner for Best New Restaurant in 2018. Also on Yelp’s Places to Eat list: Southern Charm Cafe, Cape Canaveral; Daybreak Pleasant Street, Gainesville; and German Knoodle, St. Petersburg. Here’s the full list.
- In here, it will never be Friday’s again. The Crossroad’s TGI Friday’s has closed permanently. If you were to call that location’s phone number, you’d be placed on hold with elevator music. Permanently.
- Seana’s, a Caribbean Soul Food restaurant, has opened at 719 Good Homes Road in Orlando.
- The Vegan Food Fest will be Sat., Jan. 18, from noon to 5 p.m. at Eagles Nest Park in MetroWest.
- Let’s follow the Vegan Fest note with news that the Winter Park Ruth’s Chris Steak House is going to be torn down and replaced with a new building. So far the company is mum on the reason – new prototype? flagship? – but we’ll let you know if we hear something. Ruth’s Chris started as a New Orleans restaurant but moved its corporate headquarters to Lake Mary following hurricane Katrina in 2005. It moved to Winter Park in 2011. Orlando Business Journal first reported that the Winter Park Village restaurant will be razed.
- Tabla, the Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant on Grand National Drive near Universal Orlando, is opening a location in the former Paris Bistro/Laurel Cuisine space off Park Avenue in Winter Park.
- Park Avenue has not one but two new French pastry makers: Choulala and Financier Patisserie, the latter out of New York. With Le Macaron and Croissant Gourmet Bakery, Park Ave. is becoming a veritable Champs-Élysées.
