"We love this neighborhood, but it's time to make some changes."
That's Ryan Burnet, the owner of Cocina del Barrio, explaining why he closed a restaurant that had run for fifteen years on France Avenue. Barrio wasn't struggling. Burnet owns the building. He made a choice, not a concession. If you live in the Country Club District and have watched three restaurant windows change signage in the past year, that distinction matters more than it sounds. The story circulating about 50th & France is decline. The actual story is closer to a landlord's reset, and one restaurant group moving fast enough to fill nearly every space it creates.
Three Institutions, Zero Bad Reviews
Start with what actually closed. Edina Grill ran for 26 years at 5028 France Ave. before its final day in September 2025, and the closure had nothing to do with customers. Blue Plate Restaurant Co. wasn't renewing the lease, and the jewelry store next door, R.F. Moeller, wanted to expand into the space. Owner Stephanie Shimp called it an alignment of timing, not a business failure, and said she was still evaluating other Edina locations for the brand.
Next door, Salut Bar Americain closed on December 31, 2025, after 20 years. Parasole Restaurant Holdings, which owns Salut, made the call after its lease expired at the end of 2025. The restaurant's own farewell post on social media didn't mention slowing business. It read like a company retiring a beloved fixture on its own terms, not one getting pushed out by empty tables.
Then there's Barrio. Fifteen years, a downtown Minneapolis sister location that's staying open, and an airport outpost at MSP that isn't going anywhere either. The Edina location closed on October 1, 2025, because Burnet, who owns the building, decided to redevelop it himself.
Three restaurants. Sixty-one combined years on France Avenue. None of them closed because people stopped showing up.
This Isn't the First Time
If this pattern feels familiar, it should. Before Edina Grill, Salut, and Barrio, there was Arezzo Ristorante, which spent almost 22 years at 5057 France Ave. before a dispute with its landlord ended the lease. Mothership Pizza Paradise moved into that space afterward. The mechanism was the same then as it is now: a landlord decision, not a demand collapse. What's different this time is the pace. Three long-running restaurants left within about fourteen months of each other, which is a faster reset than this district has seen in a generation.
Who's Filling the Space
Here's where the neighborhood's story gets more specific than "restaurants come and go." Look at who's actually moving in.
| Former Tenant | Years There | New Occupant | Status as of September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lynhall | — | Thérèse (French brasserie) | Open since November 2025 |
| Cocina del Barrio | 15 | Americana (new American, Ryan Burnet & Daniel del Prado) | Expected by late 2026 |
| Salut Bar Americain | 20 | General Sports Bar (from the Nolo's team) | Opened this past summer |
| Edina Grill | 26 | R.F. Moeller (jewelry, expanded footprint) | Open |
| Former SotaRol | — | The Side Door at Dexter's (Lucia's, Daq Daq, Rose Sushi) | Lucia's opened Aug. 6, 2026; Daq Daq and Rose Sushi expected later this year |
| D'Amico & Sons | — | Smith Coffee & Cafe (second location) | In progress |
Three of those six new occupants trace back to one person: chef and restaurateur Daniel del Prado. Add his sports bar Dexter's, which opened nearby before any of these leases turned over, and his footprint in the district comes to four concepts in just over a year.
One Operator, Four New Concepts
Del Prado already runs Porzana in the North Loop, Colita in south Minneapolis, and Martina in Linden Hills. In the past thirteen months, he has planted a flag at 50th & France that now includes Dexter's, an "elevated" sports bar that opened in August 2025, Thérèse, the French brasserie named for his mother that opened in the old Lynhall space that November, the Side Door food hall bringing three separate concepts into the former SotaRol building, and Americana, his partnership with Burnet in the old Barrio space.
That's not a restaurant opening. That's a restaurant group building a footprint large enough to define how the next decade of this district eats. When one operator controls this many addresses on a four-block stretch, the character of the block starts to reflect that operator's taste, whether it's Thérèse's Parisian dining room or the sports-bar energy at Dexter's and its new Side Door annex. Worth knowing if you've wondered why the last year has felt less like a series of coincidences and more like a plan.
It's also worth knowing that del Prado doesn't have the district to himself. The General Sports Bar taking over Salut's old space comes from the team behind Nolo's, a separate operator entirely. Smith Coffee & Cafe, moving into the former D'Amico & Sons spot, is expanding in from Eden Prairie. R.F. Moeller is a jeweler, not a restaurateur, and its expansion into Edina Grill's old space is really a story about retail reclaiming ground from dining, not about who's cooking next. The district isn't consolidating under a single brand. It's resetting under several, with one operator simply moving faster than the rest.
The Fall Calendar Doesn't Care Who Owns the Lease
Whatever is happening storefront by storefront, the two events that define fall at 50th & France haven't budged. The 22nd Annual Edina Fall into the Arts Festival runs Saturday, September 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, September 13, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Centennial Lakes Park, with roughly 245 artists showing work in photography, pottery, glass, and wearable art. It's free, it's run by the same volunteer infrastructure that's staged it for two decades, and it benefits the Edina First Responders Fund.
A week later, the Edina Car Show returns to 50th & France on Sunday, September 20, from noon to 4 p.m., organized by the Rotary Club of Edina with sponsors including Key Cadillac and Lund's & Byerly's, which runs the food court for the day. It's the eighth year for the show, and it's held rain or shine.
Both events are run by community organizations, not by any single restaurant group, which means they're the one part of the fall calendar in this neighborhood that isn't currently being redrawn by a lease negotiation.
What This Means for a Fall Walk Through the District
If you live in the Country Club District and haven't been to 50th & France in a few weeks, here's roughly what you'll find. Thérèse is open and taking reservations for lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch, with a menu built around steak frites and French onion soup. Dexter's and its new Side Door annex are both running, with Lucia's serving pizza and Daq Daq and Rose Sushi still to come later this year. The General Sports Bar has taken over Salut's old address. Americana is still under construction and won't open until sometime before the end of 2026.
What you won't find anymore is the Edina Grill hash browns or Salut's French onion soup at the old address. Those recipes may resurface somewhere else in the city eventually, but not on France Avenue, not this year.
The neighborhood isn't losing restaurants because people stopped eating out. It's losing restaurants because three leases ended in the same stretch of time, and one operator saw the opening before anyone else did. That's a different story than decline. It's a story about who controls the buildings, and for now, at 50th & France, the answer is shifting fast.
If you're weighing what a home near this stretch of Edina is actually worth, given how much of its daily texture is changing block by block, that's exactly the kind of read Shane Spencer brings to a listing conversation. Let's Connect — Request a Confidential Consultation.
