Three years after opening on 4th Street N., Rumba Island Bar and Grill has closed its St. Petersburg location.<\/p>\n
Baystar Restaurant Group owner Frank Chivas confirmed the closure to the Catalyst on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d Chivas said when asked whether the restaurant had closed. \u201cWe\u2019re just looking at doing a rebrand, maybe.\u201d Chivas declined to elaborate further, but indicated he would be available to discuss the plans later.<\/p>\n
The closure is also reflected on Baystar Restaurant Group\u2019s website, which lists the St. Petersburg restaurant as \u201cClosed\u201d while continuing to display operating hours for the company\u2019s Clearwater location. Google currently lists the St. Petersburg restaurant as \u201cTemporarily closed.\u201d As of Wednesday morning, neither Baystar Restaurant Group nor Rumba Island Bar & Grill had publicly announced the closure on their social media accounts.<\/p>\n
Rumba Island opened in February 2023 at 6445 4th St. N., taking over the former WingHouse Bar & Grill building after plans for the St. Petersburg location were first announced more than three years earlier.<\/p>\n
The 5,300-square-foot restaurant brought Baystar Restaurant Group\u2019s island-inspired concept to St. Petersburg, serving Caribbean-influenced seafood dishes, fresh local seafood and tropical cocktails.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The restaurant joined Baystar\u2019s portfolio of Pinellas County restaurants, which includes Salt Rock Grill, Island Way Grill and several other seafood concepts. According to the company, much of the seafood served across its restaurants comes from Baystar\u2019s own fleet of commercial fishing boats.<\/p>\n
For some customers, news of the closure came without warning.<\/p>\n
Lon and Cynthia Southerland, who moved to St. Petersburg just a few months ago, said Rumba Island quickly became one of their regular stops.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was kind of our go-to,\u201d Lon Southerland said. \u201cWe knew we could always pop in there \u2026 We were literally there two to three times a week. We met a lot of great locals there. It was \u2026 kind of a hub for folks who wanted to get \u2026 consistently quality food.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple said they first realized something was wrong when they pulled into the parking lot Tuesday expecting lunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pulled in yesterday to go and the parking lot was empty,\u201d Southerland said. \u201cWe\u2019re like, \u2018This is really strange.\u2019 \u2026 It looked like they closed the night before and just didn\u2019t reopen.\u201d<\/p>\n
What surprised him most, he said, was the apparent lack of communication with customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no signs on the door,\u201d Southerland said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t take much effort to put a sign on the door \u2026 \u2018We\u2019re so sorry, we\u2019re going to miss you guys,\u2019 or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n
It remains unclear what a potential rebrand would entail, whether another Baystar concept will replace Rumba Island at the location or when any changes might occur.<\/p>\n
The Catalyst has reached out to restaurant management for additional information, and will update this story as more details become available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three years after opening on 4th Street N., Rumba Island Bar and Grill has closed its St. Petersburg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-333477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}