Two summers ago, a Friday night in Starland meant Starland Yard, a food truck, and maybe a drink at Two Tides on West 41st. If you wanted a real dinner, you drove north to Broughton. That routine is over. Between late 2025 and this summer, the Bull Street corridor between Forsyth Park and Victory Drive has become the most concentrated stretch of new restaurants in the city, and one hospitality group now runs three of them inside a two-block walk.
That last part is the piece most residents haven't fully clocked. The neighborhood didn't get a single anchor tenant that pulled everything else in. It got a cluster.
The Southern Cross block
If you stand on Bull Street between 40th and 41st and look around, you are looking at three restaurants owned by the same company. FishBar is a few doors down from Ukiyo Izakaya & Ramen Bar, which debuted in 2022, and both belong to Southern Cross Hospitality under owner Anthony Debreceny, who started with Collins Quarter in 2014. Water Witch, the tiki bar next door to Fishbar, shares a back patio with it.
Here is what the cluster actually looks like on the ground:
- Ukiyo Izakaya & Ramen Bar — the 2022 concept that started the group's Starland footprint
- Fishbar — 2218 Bull Street, opened December 2025 in the former Squirrel's Pizza space
- Water Witch — tiki bar, connected to Fishbar by a shared rear patio
- Collins Quarter, Fitzroy, The Deck — same ownership, downtown
The Fishbar interior draws from an art deco, 1960s Italian, and French aesthetic, and the hidden-away back patio has fire pits and water features, with access shared with Water Witch next door. A resident planning an evening can start with a ramen counter dinner at Ukiyo, walk fifty yards for a cocktail at Water Witch, drift onto the shared patio, and end at a chef's counter watching whole fish come off a wood grill. That is not a coincidence of leases. That is a plan.
Fishbar, in specifics
Enough has been written about Fishbar in the last six months that residents may have skipped past the details worth knowing. A few of them:
Southern Cross culinary director Oliver Dollard recruited chef Max Barbee to develop the concept when the Bull Street space became available early in 2025. The open kitchen features a charcoal smoker, a dry-ager, and a custom Demant wood-fueled grill, and the chefs cook Mediterranean-inspired plates meant to be shared, sourcing from local suppliers. There is chef's counter seating with a direct view of the fire, fifty seats inside, and twenty more outside.
The hours are the part locals should memorize. Fishbar is open Tuesday through Saturday, 5:00 to 10:00 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday. If you tried to walk in on a Sunday and found the lights off, that is why.
Barbee's ambition for the city, not just the restaurant, is worth sitting with:
"I've always believed that Savannah should be the food capital of the South. When you look at SCAD, all the history, the art and characters in the city, we should have a much larger food scene. It's time for that to change."
That is a chef who grew up here talking about the neighborhood he came home to.
What sits on either side
The corridor is not one restaurant. Within a short walk of Fishbar, a resident can now string together an entire evening without touching Broughton:
Lucia Pasta Bar. House-made pastas, wood-fired pizza, Negronis on draft in a restored space, with menu highlights like squid ink bucatini and seasonal small plates. Two blocks from Fishbar.
Late Air. Natural wines and seasonal small plates in a neighborhood setting, with dishes like littleneck clams and roasted Brussels sprouts.
Brochu's Family Tradition. Southern comfort with a coastal sensibility, crispy chicken, seasonal sides, Lowcountry-inspired plates.
Flora & Fauna. A café that arrived on Bull Street with a soft launch and has quickly become part of the daily rotation.
Two Tides Brewing. On West 41st, the neighborhood brewery that keeps hosting summer events.
Foxy Loxy. Equal parts coffee shop, bakery, and Tex-Mex cantina, where you can order a coffee, hand-crafted tacos, or a glass of wine.
A First Friday walking route
The first Friday of the month is when this corridor stops being individual businesses and starts behaving like a single event. Starland First Fridays is a walking event that showcases the area's small businesses and local artists, with many establishments staying open late, and refreshments and specials at each stop. For July this year, the confirmed window is Friday, July 3, 5:00 to 9:00 p.m., free, centered on DeSoto Avenue and Bull Street.
If you have never actually strung the evening together, this is the route that works:
- Park near Forsyth Park's south end and walk south on Bull. Grab an iced coffee at Foxy Loxy before the heat resets your appetite.
- Detour east to DeSoto for the market tents and the gallery at 2301 Bull.
- Cocktail at Water Witch. Ask what is coming off Fishbar's grill onto the patio that night.
- Dinner reservation somewhere on the block. Fishbar's chef counter or Lucia's bar are the two seats worth booking early.
- Nightcap at Late Air or a comedy set at Front Porch Improv, 210 W. Victory Drive.
- Walk back north on Bull. In July that is the best part of the evening.
What is still coming
Residents who feel like they have already seen every opening should know the schedule is not done. Georgia's first city had a buzzy year of restaurant openings in 2025, and more than a dozen new concepts are set to open in 2026. A partial list of what has been reported as still on the way or newly landed:
- La Vetta. Opening at 15 W. Broughton Street, designed by Studio Tho with a space invoking Italian Futurism, the most ambitious effort yet from Debreceny's team.
- Marbled & Fin. A steakhouse from Neighborhood Dining Group slated to open in spring 2026 in a new building at 520 E. Oglethorpe Avenue, described as a modernized American steakhouse, less country-club wood paneling and more chef-driven.
- Sela. A Spanish tapas concept from Daniel Reed Hospitality, the group behind Local, Public Kitchen and Bar, and Franklin's, at the intersection of Bull and Liberty.
- Strange Bird. Returning in spring 2026 with the Streamliner restored to its prefire appearance and the GA Shrimp Cocktail back on the menu.
- Lester's. A seafood and raw bar opening in 2026 at The Douglas Hotel in the historic district, led by two-time James Beard Award-nominated chef Jacques Larson.
- Limani. Already open. The family behind the former Olympia Cafe returned as Limani at 417 East River Street, with a second floor, balcony, bar, and larger kitchen.
- Smashbird. A fast-casual burger concept targeting a mid-July opening at 13051 Abercorn Street, from the owners of Savannah Seafood Shack, Savannah Smokehouse BBQ and Brew, Yatai Ramen + Yakitori, and Sally Mae's.
Why this corridor and not another
For anyone who has watched Savannah slowly, the compression is the story. Bull Street from Forsyth to Victory has been "about to happen" for a long time. Real estate veteran Beth Vantosh points to Ben Carter's purchases on Broughton Street as the moment local interest began pushing south, activating the Liberty Street corridor and the Bull Street corridor all the way from the Historic Landmark District down to Starland.
The friction that slowed it, in her telling, is worth naming. In Savannah, a lot of people have owned their real estate for generations, their tax basis is low, and selling creates complications, so properties do not trade as quickly as they might in other cities, which also slows development. When a block finally does trade, or when a single hospitality group commits to three storefronts within a two-block stretch, the change is not incremental. It is visible on a Friday night.
That is what happened here. Twenty-five years ago the area was filled with derelict businesses and unusable buildings, and while the transformation was a slow burn at first, starting with events like First Fridays, it is now one of the hottest parts of town. The Savannah & Tybee Island Destination Guide for 2026 now leads with the neighborhood.
The people who live within a ten-minute walk of Bull Street already know some of this. The point of naming it plainly is the timing. A summer where Fishbar, Lucia, Late Air, Brochu's, and Flora & Fauna are all open in the same season is a different Starland than the one many longtime residents last committed to memory. It is worth walking the corridor again this month.
If you have been thinking about what your own block will look like when the next wave settles, or you are curious how a corridor like this shifts values for the homes and rentals a few streets over, Kimberly Pelletier knows the streets, the transactions, and the neighbors. Let's Connect.
