Craft Kafe owner Teddy Skiadiotis signed a lease for a Skyway Marina District location in 2019. Several years of construction, plumbing and other delays later, he is reluctant to celebrate until the doors actually open.
“This has been five, six years in the making. I feel guilty even talking about it. I just want to open,” Skiadiotis said.
He is now interviewing employees and working through the final logistics at 4725 34th St. S., with an opening targeted for October, ideally within the next two weeks.
“But the way life goes,” Kiadiotis murmured. “Ah, now I’m being cynical.”
His cynicism is not without precedent. Craft Kafe has repeatedly approached an opening at the Marina Village shopping plaza only to have the timeline slip.
When the Catalyst first reported on the project in October 2023, the location was expected to open by the end of that year or early 2024. Skiadiotis said at the time that the pandemic and contracting issues had already slowed the project.
The delays continued. In May 2025, the location was targeting a July opening. More recently, Craft Kafe again set its sights on October.
The challenges were deep, literally. The new location required engineering roughly 300 feet of plumbing to connect its grease traps independently, rather than sharing plumbing with neighboring businesses in the plaza. Skiadiotis said the additional work should also better insulate the business from sewage problems when storms and flooding strain the surrounding system.
While the wait has been considerably longer than he anticipated, Skiadiotis said recent developments, such as SkyTown and other condos, surrounding the site has “vindicated” his original decision to sign the lease.
“I’m a pretty good forecaster,” Skiadiotis said. “I believe in the area. It’s a gateway.”
That gateway is important for what Skiadiotis wants to do next. The location is positioned near Interstate 275 and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, giving Craft Kafe a potential route toward future locations in Bradenton and Sarasota.
But the most consequential part of the new location is behind the cafe.
The commissary kitchen will centralize production for Craft Kafe’s existing St. Petersburg locations, and provide the capacity to make significantly more food without requiring each storefront to duplicate the same production operation.
That was already part of the plan when the project was first reported three years ago. Skiadiotis said then that refrigeration constraints limited how much the individual cafes could produce, and envisioned using the new facility to supply existing stores and eventually distribute packaged products.
The finished kitchen pushes that concept further with heavy duty industrial equipment, including automated machinery and ultraviolet technology used to reduce contaminants, will allow Craft Kafe to increase production while maintaining a dedicated gluten-free environment. Skiadiotis eventually wants to sell products online and ship them outside the region, opening possibilities ranging from large holiday pie orders to supplying future stores.
“Scaling up won’t affect the quality of the product,” Skiadiotis said. “It’s going to be the same exact one whether you buy in store or get it shipped.”
The commissary also gives Craft Kafe a foundation for opening additional locations without building a full production kitchen at each one. The company could instead make core products in St. Petersburg and distribute them to smaller cafes.
“In a sea of dreams, this idea is what came up for air: a dedicated, gluten-free environment that are relatable foods we grew up with,” Skiadiotis said.
That idea has guided Craft Kafe since its beginning.
Skiadiotis’ move into gluten-free baking began years ago after meeting a customer named June Radcliffe, who had celiac disease and struggled to find food she could safely eat. He began experimenting with gluten-free recipes, an encounter he has repeatedly credited with helping inspire the business.
Craft Kafe eventually built its entire menu around a dedicated gluten-free kitchen rather than offering a handful of substitutes. The company stone-mills its own organic rice and also uses alternatives including almond and chickpea flours.
Even its logo, a samurai slaying gluten, grew from Skiadiotis’ personality. “Growing up, I watched a lot of karate movies,” he previously said.
Craft Kafe opened its first location at 6653 Central Ave. and later expanded downtown to 200 Central Ave.
A Tampa location opened in 2022 but closed in 2025. Skiadiotis said renovations, after the building changed hands, severely disrupted access to the cafe. Without a usable sidewalk, customers had to enter through the rear of the building and navigate construction to reach it, effectively eliminating the foot traffic on which the location depended.
The Skyway Marina operation is intended to solve a different limitation: How much Craft Kafe can make.
Skiadiotis said the production capacity will allow the company to supply its current cafes more efficiently, pursue online sales and potentially support new locations south of the Skyway without changing the recipes that built its following.
The neighborhood surrounding it has also changed substantially during the six years Craft Kafe has waited to open. Thousands of new apartments have been built or planned as the Skyway Marina District has evolved into one of south St. Petersburg’s major redevelopment areas.