Walk down Congress Street past Whitaker on a weeknight and you'll pass a dark storefront that used to be Lady & Sons, then another dark storefront next to it that used to be Órale Tacos. Neither has served a meal in years. For most of that stretch, this block has been the kind of quiet that makes you cross to the other sidewalk without thinking about it.
That's changing this year, and not because one restaurant decided to take a chance on a rough corner. It's changing because four separate corridors in the Historic District are filling in at roughly the same time, each for a different reason, and together they're about to rewrite what a walkable dinner or a Thursday night out actually looks like if you already live here.
The Block That's Been Quiet Since Lady & Sons Closed
The former Órale Tacos space on Congress Street is becoming Nickel and Oak, a two-story jazz club going in directly across from the shuttered Lady & Sons space, just off Whitaker. There's currently no comparable live-music venue between Broughton Street and the river, which means a room like this changes the calculus for anyone who lives within a few blocks of Oglethorpe Square or Wright Square and has been driving or rideshare-ing across town for a night out.
A few doors down, at 309 W. Congress St., chef Roberto Leoci is coming out of retirement to open Nico Angelo's Italiano in the former a.Lure space. The restaurant is named for his son, Nico Angelo Leoci, and it's designed as a roughly 75-seat, high-end Italian dining room rather than a casual neighborhood trattoria. Leoci had been ready to step away from the business entirely. A conversation about the empty a.Lure space changed his mind.
Put those two together and Congress Street goes from a dead zone to a block with both a live-music anchor and a chef-driven Italian dining room, inside the same year.
Two Steakhouses Where There Were Zero
A few blocks over, East Oglethorpe Avenue is getting the most consequential single opening of the year: Marbled & Fin, a modern steakhouse from the Neighborhood Dining Group, the same operator behind Husk here in Savannah and in Charleston, Nashville, and Atlanta. The restaurant is going into a new 8,700-square-foot, two-story building at 520 E. Oglethorpe Ave, and NDG president Kenny Lyons has described the concept as "a classic American steakhouse but more modernized." Once fully staffed, the Savannah location alone is expected to bring 650 jobs.
In the same calendar year, Statesboro's Bull & Barrel Steakhouse is opening a second location inside a historic multi-floor building elsewhere in the district. Paired with Marbled & Fin, that takes the Historic District from a market with essentially no dedicated steakhouse to two of them within twelve months.
Nearby, beneath The Douglas Hotel, chef Jacques Larson, a two-time James Beard Award nominee, is opening Lester's, a seafood and raw bar built around oysters, shellfish, and market catch, with French technique applied to a Lowcountry point of view. Larson is sourcing from local producers, including the bakery Sixby, which means the seafood counter and the steakhouse boom are drawing on the same regional supply lines rather than competing for attention.
Here's the quick version of what's landing and where:
- Marbled & Fin — 520 E. Oglethorpe Ave, modern steakhouse, 8,700 square feet, from the Husk ownership group
- Bull & Barrel Steakhouse — historic multi-floor space in the district, Statesboro-based operator
- Lester's — beneath The Douglas Hotel, seafood and raw bar, chef Jacques Larson
- Nickel and Oak — Congress Street, jazz club, former Órale Tacos space
- Nico Angelo's Italiano — 309 W. Congress St, chef Roberto Leoci
- Sela — Bull and Liberty streets, Spanish tapas, Daniel Reed Hospitality
- Elsewhere — Bay Street, late-night lounge and restaurant, targeted for late 2026
The Corner That Didn't Need Help
Not every new opening is claiming empty ground. At the intersection of Bull and Liberty, an area already home to several established restaurants under Daniel Reed Hospitality, including Local, Public Kitchen and Bar, Franklin's, and Local 11ten, the same group is adding Sela, a Spanish tapas concept. This corner wasn't dining-thin to begin with. Sela tightens an already dense pocket rather than opening new territory, which is a different kind of change than what's happening on Congress Street. If you live near this intersection, the shift isn't about having options where you had none. It's about an already-strong walk getting stronger.
Bay Street's Latest Bet Skips Dinner Entirely
Farther north, on Bay Street, restaurateur Jay Trikha and business partners Dan Patel and Peter Patel are building Elsewhere, an approximately 8,000-square-foot concept overlooking the Savannah River, targeted for a late 2026 opening. It's built as three distinct rooms: a public-facing restaurant, a semi-speakeasy lounge, and a members-only space, with a South European and Mediterranean tapas-style menu and rotating guest chefs. Trikha describes the aesthetic as "Dubai luxury." Dinner service is planned to start around 7 p.m. and run until 1 or 2 in the morning, which puts it in a different category than a typical restaurant. This is a late-night destination first and a dinner spot second, and it's the one addition on this list built for people who are already out, not people looking for an early table.
What Changes for Someone Who Already Lives Here
None of this is really about visitors. Tourists have been finding River Street and Broughton Street for decades regardless of what opens where. This wave is happening in the residential edges of the Historic District, the blocks where people who live on the squares actually walk their dogs, meet friends, and decide whether to bother finding parking downtown or just stay home.
If you're on Oglethorpe Square or nearby, you're getting two steakhouses and a seafood counter within walking distance where there used to be none. If you're near Congress and Whitaker, a block that's been dark since Lady & Sons closed is picking up a jazz club and a chef-driven Italian room in the same stretch. If you're closer to Bull and Liberty, your options were already strong and they're getting deeper. And if you keep late hours near the river, Bay Street is building something that assumes you're still out at midnight.
The honest read is that Savannah's Historic District isn't getting more restaurants in some abstract sense. It's getting a different shape to its evenings, block by block, depending on which square you happen to live near. Worth keeping an eye on as these open through the rest of the year, because a five-minute walk that didn't exist last year is exactly the kind of thing that changes how a neighborhood actually feels to live in.
If you're weighing a move within Savannah, or into it, and want to talk through which pocket of the Historic District actually fits how you want your evenings to look, Home and Farms Realty is happy to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.
