Rumba Island Bar and Grill shut down its St. Petersburg spot at 6445 4th St. North. Owner Frank Chivas runs Baystar Restaurant Group and confirmed the news Wednesday.
Workers arrived for shifts earlier this week. They found the restaurant locked. The 5,300-square-foot building had closed without warning, according to St. Pete Rising. Chairs sit stacked inside. Outdoor patio furniture has vanished. No sign explains why.
“We’re just looking at doing a rebrand, maybe,” Chivas said, according to the Catalyst. He wouldn’t share more but said he’d discuss plans later.
The place opened in February 2023 in a building that once housed WingHouse Bar & Grill. It served Caribbean-influenced seafood dishes, tropical cocktails, and hosted live music on weekends with happy hour specials.
Baystar Restaurant Group’s website now lists the St. Petersburg spot as “Closed” while showing hours for the Clearwater location. Google marks it as “Temporarily closed.” Neither Baystar nor the restaurant announced anything on social media as of Wednesday morning.
Frank Chivas has run restaurants in Pinellas County over two decades through Baystar Restaurant Group. The company owns Salt Rock Grill, Island Way Grill, and several other seafood concepts. Much of the seafood served across these restaurants comes from the group’s own fleet of commercial fishing boats.
Customers said the closure caught them off guard. Lon and Cynthia Southerland moved to St. Petersburg a few months ago and visited two to three times a week.
“That was kind of our go-to,” Lon Southerland said. “We knew we could always pop in there … We were literally there two to three times a week.”
The couple pulled into the parking lot Tuesday expecting lunch but found it empty. “We pulled in yesterday to go and the parking lot was empty,” Lon Southerland said. “We’re like, ‘This is really strange.’ … It looked like they closed the night before and just didn’t reopen.”
“There were no signs on the door,” he added. “It wouldn’t take much effort to put a sign on the door … ‘We’re so sorry, we’re going to miss you guys,’ or whatever.”
The Clearwater location at 1800 Gulf to Bay Boulevard remains open. Details about a potential rebrand or replacement concept haven’t been released.