Nine days ago, the Southwest High School marching band led a parade of decorated bikes out of Pershing Park, the food trucks lined up in their usual spots, and the silent auction ran until 2:30 like it always does. The Fulton Fall Festival has followed roughly the same schedule for years: bike parade at 10:45, festival opens at 11, doors close at 3. If you grew up in Fulton, you could probably run the event from memory.
Walk two blocks west to 50th and France, though, and almost nothing has stayed the same for the past two years. The shopping district that anchors Fulton's western edge has quietly become the property of one restaurant group, and the pattern is worth understanding if you eat there more than once a month.
Four Addresses, One Name
Start with the timeline. Chef Daniel del Prado, already known in Minneapolis for Martina, Colita, and Rosalia, opened Dexter's, a sports bar, at 3717 W. 50th St. in August 2024. That was his first foothold in the district. Then came Noma Hi-Fi Bar at 3914 W. 50th St., a cocktail room built around a vinyl collection. Then Thérèse, an upscale French brasserie named for del Prado's mother, opened in the former Lynhall space at 3945 Market St. inside the Nolan Mains development this past November. It has been serving steak frites, croque monsieur, and French onion soup for the better part of a year now.
Behind Dexter's, a small food hall called Side Door began rolling out this spring. Lucia's, serving pizza and salad, opened first and has run on its own for months. Daq Daq's Korean fried chicken and Rose Sushi's nigiri were expected to follow that same spring, filling out a three-concept format in a space that used to be SotaRol. As of this month, both are still listed as coming soon rather than open.
That is four addresses tied to one operator within a corridor short enough to walk end to end in about six minutes. None of it happened by accident. Del Prado's business partner on two of those projects, Ryan Burnet, is the same Ryan Burnet who spent fifteen years running Cocina del Barrio a few doors down.
What Fulton Lost When Barrio Closed
Barrio closed on October 1, 2025. For a decade and a half it had been the Mexican restaurant families in Fulton and Edina treated as a default, the kind of place where a hostess remembers your order. Burnet made the call himself, telling reporters he wanted to build something new rather than let the space sit as a shuttered storefront. He kept his other Barrio location running downtown, but the 50th and France original is gone for good.
In its place: Americana, a new American restaurant from del Prado and Burnet together, their third collaboration after Porzana in the North Loop and Minari in Northeast Minneapolis. The plans call for a glass-enclosed rooftop patio designed by Christian Dean Architecture at 5036 France Ave. S. As of this month, it still hasn't opened.
A few doors down, the story looks different. Smith Coffee and Cafe, an Eden Prairie shop with no connection to del Prado's group, is opening a second location at 3948 W. 50th St. in the former D'Amico & Sons space. Not every square foot in the district belongs to the same owner. But enough of them do that the district's character has shifted in a way a single new opening never could.
Why Americana Is Taking Longer Than the Others
Here is the part that explains the delay, and it has nothing to do with construction schedules or chef availability. Edina zoning ties parking requirements to a building's floor-to-area ratio. Americana's planned addition would push that ratio from 0.94 to 1.2, which under city code triggers a requirement for 14 additional off-street parking spaces. City staff initially recommended denying the variance, writing that granting it would work against the ordinance's purpose, which is to "distribute the available parking within the public ramps fairly to all property owners" in the district.
The Planning Commission voted 5 to 1 in favor anyway, and the City Council took up the matter in early October 2025. Americana's team has been negotiating a parking agreement with the adjacent BMO Harris Bank branch at 5050 France Ave., which has a 31 space lot, to help close the gap.
This is the detail that separates del Prado's expansion from an ordinary restaurant boom. A parking variance fight like this is exactly the kind of cost that sinks a first time independent operator before they pour a first drink. It's a different calculation for a group that already has three profitable concepts generating revenue in the same two blocks. The ordinance doesn't pick winners on paper, but in practice it favors whoever already has the balance sheet to absorb the delay. That is a structural reason, not a coincidence, for why one name keeps showing up on new leases in this district.
The Lineup as of This Fall
If you're trying to keep track of what's actually open right now versus what's still coming, here's where things stand:
- Open now: Thérèse (French brasserie, Nolan Mains), Noma Hi-Fi Bar (cocktails, 3914 W. 50th St.), Dexter's (sports bar, 3717 W. 50th St.), Lucia's inside Side Door (pizza and salad)
- Expected but not yet confirmed open: Daq Daq and Rose Sushi, the remaining two concepts inside Side Door
- Still under construction or awaiting final approval: Americana (5036 France Ave. S., targeted for fall 2026), Smith Coffee and Cafe (former D'Amico & Sons space)
If a favorite spot from a couple of years ago is missing from that list, there's a decent chance it's because the address changed hands rather than the restaurant simply failing.
What Doesn't Change: Pershing Park, September 12
Set the restaurant math aside for a moment and go back to Pershing Park. The Fulton Fall Festival isn't run by a hospitality group with investors to satisfy. It's organized by the Fulton Neighborhood Association, funded by a silent auction and a vendor marketplace, and staffed by the same volunteers who put up the Fulton Fall Festival every second Saturday in September. The bike parade with the Southwest High marching band, the face painting, the food trucks: none of that depends on who owns the storefronts at 50th and France.
That contrast is the actual story here. Fulton's community anchor, the park, the schools, the festival calendar, holds steady year after year. Its commercial edge, three blocks away, has consolidated into fewer hands faster than most residents have had time to notice. Both things are true about the same neighborhood at the same time, and neither cancels out the other.
For anyone weighing what it means to live two blocks from a shopping district under this kind of active reinvestment, or wondering how a corner like this affects home values along France Avenue, that's the kind of on the ground context worth having before you make a decision either way. The Petersen Team has spent years watching how corridors like 50th and France shape buyer interest in Fulton, Linden Hills, and the neighborhoods around them. If you're curious what your home might be worth against a backdrop like this one, request a home valuation and we'll walk you through what we're actually seeing on the ground.
