Owner of marquee South Tampa restaurant property preps for next step
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 26, 2016

The owner of a prime piece of restaurant real estate in South Tampa is preparing the property for its next era.

Gordon Davis is requesting a certificate of appropriateness from the city's architectural review commission on the building at 1502 S. Howard Ave., which was most recently Copperfish Seafood Grill & Oyster Bar.

Davis, a pioneer of the South Howard restaurant scene, said Monday that he needs the ARC to sign off on the stack stone on the exterior of the building. "It's so we can get the building back under compliance," he said.

A public hearing on the request will be heard on May 2. ARC's decision is crucial to the next phase for the property, though Davis is still evaluating what that might be.

"I have a couple concepts I've been working on over the past year," he said, "but I've also had outside interest. It's an anchor of that part of Howard Avenue." Copperfish opened to rave reviews in 2013 but was plagued by problems including fines from the city and a dispute within SoHo Hospitality, its ownership group. That was resolved in September 2014, when SoHo Hospitality split up and Davis became the owner of Copperfish.

Before Copperfish, the property was home to St. Bart's Island House. Before that, it was Le Bordeaux, which Davis closed down in 2002.

When Le Bordeaux opened in the 1980s, it "took South Tampa by storm with its affordable French provincial cuisine," according to South Tampa magazine.

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.