The 50th & France Restaurant Turnover You're About to Live Through

If you've lived within walking distance of 50th & France for more than a year or two, you already know the district isn't the same place it was in 2024. Four longtime anchor tenants have gone dark. Their replacements are opening in a compressed window between this summer and next spring, most of them controlled by three restaurant groups you already recognize from downtown and Uptown. What looks from the street like the usual churn is closer to a coordinated generational handoff, and it's going to reshape your regular table for the next decade.

This isn't a "new restaurants to try" listicle. It's a map of who's replacing whom, when their doors actually open, and where the gaps in your dining week are going to sit between now and the holidays.

Four Addresses, One 12-Month Window

The blocks around 50th and France used to run on a stable rotation: Salut for a patio drink, Barrio for margaritas, D'Amico & Sons for a fast plate of pasta, Lynhall for a slow brunch. All four of those tenants are gone. Here's what's landing in their spaces.

Two things about that table are worth staring at. The first is that Thérèse is expected to open in early November in the former Lynhall space in Edina, located at 3945 Market St. within the Nolan Mains development, and Americana is going into the old Barrio space one block over. Americana is one of three restaurants del Prado is planning to open in the 50th and France neighborhood. One chef, one restaurant group, three storefronts inside a four-block radius. That is not a coincidence. That is a bet on the district.

The second is that Americana isn't just a re-skin of the Barrio footprint. By fall 2026, Americana will replace Cocina del Barrio and will feature a glass-enclosed rooftop patio and redesign by Christian Dean Architecture. A year-round rooftop on France Avenue changes the winter calculus for anyone who's been writing off outdoor dining from November through March.

What You Can Actually Eat This Week

Between the announced openings and the current gaps, here's the honest state of the district right now.

If you want a French brasserie experience, you're waiting until November. The Thérèse menu that's been previewed leans classic: steak frites, croque monsieur, Lyonnaise salad, escargot, and French onion soup, with beverage director Megan Luedtke, who has built the drink programs across the DDP portfolio, running the wine and cocktail side. If you were a Lynhall regular for the pastry case and the light-flooded room, that specific version of that room is not coming back.

If you want a fast, sit-down lunch on the 50th Street side, the D'Amico footprint is dormant until Smith Coffee opens. Owner Ann Schuster announced the cafe's second location Tuesday, telling the Minnesota Star Tribune about her plans for the former D'Amico & Sons space. The Eden Prairie original runs out of a historic farmhouse and pulls a devoted breakfast crowd. Expect daily hours from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. and pizza nights may also be added down the road. A grand opening is anticipated sometime this fall.

If you want a bar with a game on, General Sports Bar is the near-term answer. Hiring is underway at a new sports bar with more than 25 televisions from the team behind Nolo's, opening this summer in Edina inside the former Salut restaurant space. Twenty-five-plus screens on France Avenue is a category the district has never really had. The old Salut room was built for lingering; the new tenant is being built for turnover.

And if you want something already open and quietly good, the district's most interesting recent addition is a few blocks off France entirely. British sausages, meat pies, scones and other traditional comfort foods from across the pond are on the menu at Edina's newest restaurant. The Mad Hatter Bakery and Cafe celebrated its soft opening last week ahead of a grand opening Saturday, April 25 inside the One Corporate Center at 7300 Metro Blvd. With many corporate offices nearby, the Mad Hatter is open weekdays from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. The cafe features both dine-in and patio seating. It's a weekday-only proposition, which most residents haven't caught onto yet.

For a slightly older but still under-radar option, the Side Door food hall at Dexter's just off 50th is now running three counters under one roof. A new food hall from Daniel del Prado's restaurant group will open soon near 50th and France. Daq Daq will offer Korean fried chicken; Lucia's will serve pizza and salad; and Rose Sushi will focus on nigiri and sushi rolls. That's a third del Prado footprint before Thérèse and Americana even open.

The Fall Calendar That Ties It Together

The turnover isn't happening in a vacuum. The district's built-in event calendar keeps pulling foot traffic through the same blocks, which is what makes these operator bets work in the first place.

Between now and Thanksgiving, the dates a resident actually cares about are:

• Fridays through September 4. The Summer Concert Series runs 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Plaza at Nolan Mains. The Plaza sits directly across from the Thérèse space, which is the softest possible test market for the room's eventual patio traffic.
• Thursdays, 3 to 7 p.m. The Farmers Market at Centennial Lakes Park. A short walk from France Avenue and consistently the least crowded way to spend a summer weeknight in Edina.
• Second weekend of September. Fall into the Arts Festival: organized by the Edina Chamber of Commerce and Explore Edina, in support of the Edina Crime Prevention Fund. Held the second weekend in September at Centennial Lakes Park. The quieter counterpart to the June Art Fair, which itself draws hundreds of thousands of visitors over three days. Fall into the Arts has always been the better one if you actually want to talk to the artists.
• Early November. Thérèse opens, assuming the announced timeline holds.
• Saturday after Thanksgiving. The Community Tree-Lighting at 50th & France, which historically kicks off the district's holiday shopping window.

The Wildcard at Southdale

One more piece of the map, and it isn't at 50th & France at all. Restaurateurs Sharon and Randy Stanley (of Baldamar and 6Smith) plan to open a steak and seafood restaurant in Southdale Center in fall 2026. The concept, Smithson, matters because Southdale has not had a serious destination steakhouse inside its walls in years. The Stanleys have shown with Baldamar in Roseville and 6Smith in Wayzata that they can pull diners from outside a ten-minute radius. If Smithson lands, the gravity of Southdale as a dining anchor shifts, and the mall stops being just a shopping trip with a food court attached.

The interesting question for anyone who lives here isn't which of these restaurants is going to be great. Statistically, some will and some won't. It's whether the district can absorb four simultaneous debuts in the same twelve-month window without a couple of them cannibalizing each other.

A Short Game Plan for the Next Six Months

If you want to actually use this rather than just read it, here's how to sequence it:

1. Now through September 4. Rotate the Nolan Mains Friday concerts with the Centennial Lakes farmers market. This is the last summer where the Thérèse space sits empty; the sidewalk vibe changes the second it opens.
2. Second weekend of September. Fall into the Arts Festival. Park at 50th & France and walk to Centennial Lakes. You'll cover both districts in one afternoon.
3. Late September into October. Watch for the Smith Coffee grand opening at the old D'Amico space. Weekday breakfast on 50th Street has been thin since D'Amico closed.
4. Early November. Thérèse opens. Expect a six-to-eight-week reservation crunch based on how the DDP openings have gone elsewhere in the metro.
5. After Thanksgiving. Tree-lighting Saturday, then holiday shopping in a district that will look meaningfully different from the one you shopped in last December.

The reason any of this matters for a homeowner in Country Club, Morningside, or the blocks off Wooddale isn't that the food scene is upgrading. It's that the walk-out-your-door options are being rebuilt from the studs across a single year. That's the kind of shift that gets priced into the neighborhood slowly, and then all at once.

If you're weighing what your block is worth right now against what it might be worth once these rooms are all open and reviewed, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks Edina's inventory by street rather than by ZIP code. Move Real Estate works this district every week. Let's Connect.