A lot has changed at 22 South, the new food hall inside St. Petersburg’s Historic Manhattan Casino.
For one, two of the seven opening restaurants — Three Generations and Ray’s Vegan Soul — have since departed. Another one — St. Pete Bowls — is only serving food on Sundays. And as far as I can tell, the sangria bar that was advertised when the hall opened in April is still a work in progress.
All of this came as a bit of surprise on a recent visit to the food hall, when I brought along Tampa Bay Times reporter Jake Piazza to help me check out the scene. With seven restaurants to try, I figured I could use the help. As it turned out, even with a smaller group of restaurants, we still had more food than we could handle.
The hall, which opened at the end of April, is both a restaurant and an incubator for culinary startups and entrepreneurs. It’s a unique concept that has diners ordering from a server the way they would in a traditional sit-down restaurant while multiple chefs from different restaurants share a large communal kitchen in the back.
