For five years, the building at the foot of the Snell Isle Bridge sat dark. Marchand's Bar & Grill, the old standby inside the Vinoy, closed in 2020 and never reopened. If a real dinner out was the plan, you crossed the bridge, passed the shuttered windows, and kept driving into downtown for Beach Drive or Central Avenue. The bridge was just the thing you drove over on the way somewhere else.
That's no longer an accurate description of the block. In Marchand's old spot is Elliott Aster, and it now carries a Michelin Recommended designation. The storefront that defined the base of the bridge for half a decade is, by most measures, the most interesting kitchen within five minutes of the island.
What Actually Opened Where Marchand's Used to Be
Elliott Aster opened in May 2025 inside the Vinoy's original 1925 dining hall, restored as part of a renovation that brought back the room's Pompeian frescoes and ornate plaster casting. The restaurant is the first Florida project from Chicago's Boka Restaurant Group, run by chef Lee Wolen, a James Beard finalist who earned his own Michelin star at Alla Vita, his Italian restaurant in Chicago. His menu at Elliott Aster leans the same direction: wood-fired steaks, handmade pastas, a curated antipasti bar, and a weekend brunch built around seafood towers and egg dishes.
The restaurant was the centerpiece of something bigger. The Vinoy's owners, Bryan and Shanna Glazer, bought the historic hotel in 2018 for $188.5 million and have been updating it in phases ever since, including the lobby, guest rooms, spa, and the porte-cochère that Glazer has described as the hotel's "front porch" to the city. Elliott Aster's opening marked the completion of that first phase.
The Address Problem Nobody Solved Until Now
Elliott Aster's address, 501 5th Avenue NE, technically puts it in downtown St. Petersburg, not on the island itself. But the golf club at the center of the resort, known for its art deco-era Mediterranean design, sits inside the neighborhood everyone calls Snell Isle, and the hotel that houses Elliott Aster sits right where the Snell Isle Bridge meets the mainland. For years that boundary didn't matter, because there wasn't much reason to stop at it. Now there is.
That distinction changes the math on a weeknight dinner. A table at Elliott Aster doesn't require driving into the parking and crowds that the rest of downtown's restaurant scene depends on. It requires crossing one bridge, the same one residents already cross for the mail or the grocery run. The golf clubhouse across the fairway keeps its own separate dining room for members watching the sunset over the back nine, but Elliott Aster is the one that made the bridge itself worth a special-occasion detour.
There's a seasonal wrinkle worth knowing before booking. Parasol, the Vinoy's poolside restaurant, closed for updates from July 6 through August 31 this year, with guests redirected to Paul's Landing in the meantime. It reopened September 1, which means this is the first stretch since Elliott Aster's debut that the resort's full lineup of dining rooms, poolside and fine dining alike, is running at the same time.
The Walk That Already Ends at This Bridge
Snell Isle residents who bike or walk toward downtown already have a route worth taking, and it starts at the water. The shoreline path along Coffee Pot Bayou, roughly two miles by the stretch regulars use, runs past Coffee Pot Park and toward the Snell Isle Bridge before continuing along Vinoy Park, Vinoy Beach with its volleyball courts, and the Gizella Kopsick Palm and Cycad Arboretum, eventually reaching Al Lang Field and the Dali Museum for anyone who keeps going.
The stretch near Coffee Pot Park has its own quiet reputation. A storm drain there carries freshwater from Crescent Lake into the bayou's saltwater, and manatees gather at the mix, most reliably in the cooler months but often enough that longtime residents barely stop to point anymore. Dolphins turn up more consistently on the far side of the Snell Isle Bridge, where the bayou opens toward Tampa Bay.
None of that is new. What's new is what waits at the far end of it. The same walk that already passes Vinoy Park and stops at the bridge now continues straight into a dining room carrying a Michelin Recommended tag.
What This Changes This Fall
None of this requires a car trip that didn't already exist. What changes is what the trip is for. A dinner reservation across the bridge used to mean the golf clubhouse's steakhouse or a longer drive into downtown proper. It now means a full Italian-steakhouse dinner from a Chicago Michelin kitchen, in a dining room with restored century-old frescoes, without leaving the short stretch of road between the island and the mainland.
The timing lines up with the season residents already track. As the bayou cools into manatee season this fall and winter, the same walk that ends at the bridge now has a second reason to finish there instead of turning back. Reservations were booked solid through Elliott Aster's first month after it opened last year, so a specific night is still worth planning around rather than assuming.
None of this changes what a Snell Isle address is worth on paper. But a neighborhood's daily rhythm, the walk you already take and the table you can now get to at the end of it, is usually the first thing that shifts before a market does. If you've been thinking about what's next for your own address on the island, The Davenport Group can talk through it. Request a Confidential Home Valuation whenever you're ready, bridge crossing not required.
