Restaurant Row Retools for Weeknights as Town Center's Next Openings Wait

"We didn't just want to give up on the space," chef Pushkar Marathe told the Sun Sentinel in July, after he closed his Michelin-recommended Stage Kitchen & Bar on Restaurant Row. "This was a great way to stay relevant and crowd-pleasing." Less than seven weeks later the same room reopened as Boca Brasserie. That makes it the second space at the Town Center Road project to change hands in under two years, and this time the chef said outright that he rebuilt the room for regulars. For anyone driving east on Glades Road from Boca West, the restaurants next to Town Center at Boca Raton have spent 2026 rebuilding around the weeknight table.

Why a Celebrated Room Went Casual in Seven Weeks

Stage opened on Restaurant Row in March 2025 with a global menu that included tandoori churrasco, Korean barbecue ribs, truffle naan and Peruvian chicken. Marathe told the Sun Sentinel it drew strong early crowds and quickly became a splurge for holidays and weekends. Weekday turnout stayed middling, though, and that wasn't enough to carry a 200-seat dining room. He called the turnover "a matter of survival" and a nod to "what locals really want."

Stage served its last dinner on July 5. Boca Brasserie opened on Aug. 20, ending a 16-month run for the earlier concept. The Palm Beach Post described the new restaurant as a neighborhood dining room built for regulars.

The price change is the clearest sign of the new target. Before opening, Marathe said he expected entrées to drop from the $65 to $75 range at Stage to $25 to $35 at Boca Brasserie. That puts the room closer to its casual neighbors, Motek and El Camino. The menu he described leans on dishes he associates with childhood dinners in Chicago and New York:

• Prime rib, prime steaks, local fish, burgers and salmon
• French onion and matzoh ball soups
• Twice-blanched french fries with custom dipping sauces
• Sourdough flatbreads, including a margherita, a mushroom and a Swiss-style tarte flambée, baked in a new stone oven that replaced Stage's Spanish grill
• Tableside martini service

Stage regulars will still find a few things they know. The spicy tuna bombs and green chickpea hummus stayed, and so did the open kitchen. The plans called for extra booth seating in the dining room and retro photos of vintage Boca Raton on the walls. Marathe is also realistic about the competition: "Even though there are seven or eight steakhouses around us, I think we're going to be successful because competition is good."

The Row Has Done This Once Before

Restaurant Row sits at the base of the 11-story Two Town Center office building, near the mall. The Boca Raton Tribune reports that it opened in late 2024 as the city's first ground-up, restaurant-only destination. Its first turnover came quickly. Fiolina Pasta House closed in December 2024 after about a year, and Motek, an upscale Israeli-style restaurant, took the space. That means two of the row's four spaces have changed hands.

Here is the lineup as of this fall. The names come from the July 2026 announcement by the property's owner, PEBB Enterprises, and the turnover history comes from the Sun Sentinel and Palm Beach Post:

The local coverage turned up no other 2026 changes on the row beyond the Stage switch.

What a Weeknight There Looks Like Now

The practical details also point toward everyday use. Boca Brasserie's dining room is open 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and the bar stays open an hour later each night. The Palm Beach Post reported a daily 2 to 6 p.m. happy hour with drink specials and bar bites. Before opening, Marathe described that window with $8 to $12 cocktails and $10 menu items.

Parking changed this summer too. PEBB Enterprises hired TruPark USA, which began on July 1. TruPark runs valet for all four restaurants every day from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., covering both lunch and dinner.

So far, coverage of Boca Brasserie since it opened consists of the Palm Beach Post's opening profile. No full critic's review has appeared yet.

Inside the Mall, Two Larger Rooms Are Still Coming

The main level of Town Center at Boca Raton has its own pair of arrivals. Both are bigger, slower projects than the quick turnovers on the row, and both are planned around dinner as an outing.

Felice. The Tuscan restaurant and wine bar, founded on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is adding a Boca location to its Florida outposts in Brickell and West Palm Beach. Boca Magazine reported that it will seat 150 across the dining room, bar and patio. The interior is by Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture, the firm behind Felice Flatiron in New York. The menu features Tuscan dishes and handmade pastas, with a wine list shaped by founder Jacopo Giustiniani's family history in Tuscan winemaking. Boca Magazine's Sept. 3 story put the opening in "this fall or winter." A Palm Beach Post photo gallery published Sept. 10 narrowed that to late fall or early winter, with the space still under construction.

Limani Grille. The Post places it next door to Felice. The mall's directory describes Mediterranean seafood with Greek specialties, made with Kalamata olive oil, Santorini capers and Kozani saffron. Captions in the Post's gallery show salmon-and-tuna tartare, octopus and calamari, lobster pasta and salt-baked fish, with a cowboy steak described as a possible addition. Its timeline has moved more than once. Boca Magazine reported in August that Limani was first slated for spring 2024 and is now targeting fall 2026. Construction was still under way in the Post's photos from late summer, which also showed outdoor seating.

As of the Post's Sept. 10 report, neither restaurant had a specific opening date. The mall's directory also lists a few smaller changes, all without dates:

1. Lumi Tea, a boba and matcha concept, is marked "Coming Soon."
2. Tobu is marked "Closed for Renovation," with no reopening date posted.
3. Felice and Limani Grille are both still marked "Coming Soon."

The Longer Horizon Is the Former Sears Site

The biggest possible change to dining around Town Center is still only a proposal. In July, the Sun Sentinel reported that Simon Property Group plans to redevelop about 32 acres between Glades Road and St. Andrews Boulevard, where the Sears building has sat empty since the store closed in 2018. The plan calls for an eight-story hotel, a seven-story residential building with 374 units, and 140,000 square feet of shops and restaurants. The Boca Raton Tribune's account of the same proposal described a 197-room hotel and more than 157,000 square feet spread across eight retail and restaurant buildings. Mark Silvestri, Simon's president of development, said the project would bring "first-to-market dining offerings" to the property.

Approval hasn't happened yet. In July the Sun Sentinel reported that no city meetings had been scheduled. The Tribune's July 17 follow-up said the plans were in the city's projects-in-review material but had not been placed on a City Council agenda. The city calendar lists a Planning & Zoning Board meeting for Oct. 1, but the event listing doesn't name the Sears project. No construction timeline for the site has been published. The changes on Restaurant Row are already open.

Plenty of nights out begin with someone mentioning that a favorite room has changed hands, and the same local knowledge comes in handy when you're comparing one club community's daily routine with another's. If you'd like to know what your Boca West home is worth with this stretch of Glades Road changing around it, The Entel Group can give you a current read. Get a Free Home Valuation.