By late morning on Aug. 29, two days after the reopening, families were already walking the 420 feet out to the T-shaped deck of the Fire Marshal Dick Brock Memorial Pier. They came to fish, to look out over Old Tampa Bay or just to stand in the shade at the far end. "I love it! I'm so glad it's done after two years," a Clearwater resident told Tampa Bay Beacons as she took in the view with her sister. "I used to come here before the storms took it out, so it's good to be back."
Almost nobody saw the reopening coming. Mayor Joe Ayoub announced it on Aug. 27 in a Facebook video. In it, he checked the last task off a list while standing next to the city mascot, Fiona Fun, and said, "It looks like everything is ready to go!" The pier opened at about 10 a.m. that morning. The formal ribbon-cutting came later, on Sept. 12.
The surprise has a simple explanation, and it shows up again and again around Safety Harbor this fall. The things coming back fastest are the ones coming back as close copies of what was there before.
Why the pier beat its own deadline
The old wooden pier had been a fixture of the waterfront for more than a century. Hurricane Irma had already battered it in September 2017, and it needed replacing before the back-to-back storms of fall 2024 destroyed it. Its history goes back to the late 1800s, when a simple wooden dock carried mail and supplies and served both commercial and recreational fishermen.
After the storms, the City Commission fast-tracked a reconstruction of the pier and the Safety Harbor Marina that had been planned for years. The key decision was the design. The new pier looks and works much like the old one, and the city reused the existing permits for its design and location to speed things up. According to the city, the pier finished under budget and months ahead of schedule.
So the pier you walk out on today has the same footprint, the same 420-foot approach and the same covered deck at the end. Building a copy is a big part of why it opened in August instead of at the end of the year.
The rest of the waterfront runs on a different clock
The pier is one piece of a larger recovery project. The city's work on Waterfront Park, the pier, the marina, the living shoreline and part of the boardwalk began Monday, July 7, 2025, and is expected to wrap up by the end of December 2026. The city also noted that some pieces would finish before that 18-month window closed. The pier was one of them. Here's where the rest stood as of the city's most recent weekly update, dated Sept. 14:
| Waterfront piece | Status as of the Sept. 14, 2026 city update |
|---|---|
| Fire Marshal Dick Brock Memorial Pier | Open since Aug. 27 |
| Waterfront Park | Open, reached through the north entrance near Jefferson Street |
| Waterfront Park restrooms | Open |
| Marina | Closed; electricians working on the main electrical panel |
| Boat ramp | Closed; trailer parking spaces recently painted |
| Veterans Memorial Lane parking and park shelters | Closed during construction |
| Trail bollard lights | City page still lists 32 of 35 as inoperable |
The city hasn't posted separate reopening dates for the marina, the boat ramp or the Veterans Memorial Lane lot. For now, the only published target for those is the overall end-of-December finish. The trail lights have a paper trail too. On Sept. 15, 2025, the Commission approved buying 35 solar bollards, five of them spares, for $58,383. A year later, the city's project page still says 32 of the 35 lights don't work, and the weekly update doesn't say whether the new ones have gone in.
That makes for an evening sunset walk this fall where you can get all the way out to the end of the pier while the marina beside it is still a work zone. If you're walking the trail after dark, plan for it to be dim until the lights are confirmed fixed.
Main Street's busiest corner stays in local hands
The same pattern runs up Main Street. The biggest change was on the corner where Bar Fly operated for 14 years. Its last day of service was July 30, and the sale to Frenchy's, the Clearwater-based restaurant group, was set to close July 31. Owner Jeff Harrell said he picked Frenchy's because the two businesses share a lot. "Their business model, being really a mom-and-pop and an operation like ours with the seafood and everything else, concentrates on a lot of similar items," he told the Tampa Bay Times.
Frenchy's has its own long local history. Michael "Frenchy" Preston opened Frenchy's Original Cafe on Baymont Street on Clearwater Beach in 1981. The group now runs five locations: Frenchy's Original Cafe, Saltwater Cafe, Rockaway Grill, South Beach Cafe and Outpost Bar & Grill. The Safety Harbor spot will be only its second location off Clearwater Beach, after the Dunedin Outpost opened in 2013.
The handoff was set up to look after staff. Bar Fly and Frenchy's put together a severance package for employees, and former Bar Fly workers can reapply once renovations wrap up and the new Frenchy's opens. As for timing, the Clearwater Sentinel reported in August that Harrell expected the new restaurant to open in September once renovations were done. September has come and gone, and none of the coverage we reviewed confirms an opening or a new date. Frenchy's hadn't made a public statement about the purchase as of Tampa Bay 28's July 31 report. For now, it's a sixth Frenchy's coming to the corner after renovations.
Bar Fly is still in business. The Harrell family is concentrating on its Palm Harbor location, which opened about a year ago, and Jeff Harrell has leased the former Pizza World next door for a sit-down restaurant with 80 to 90 percent of the Safety Harbor menu. Their son Ethan is joining the business. Until that opens, the smaller Palm Harbor menu still has the lobster melt, lobster roll and a lineup of tacos.
Bigger rooms for names already on Main Street
The other Main Street news this season comes from businesses expanding on the same street.
The Sandwich on Main closed its 308 Main St. shop in June 2025. By late August 2026 it had reopened in a roomier space at 801 Main St. The menu is built on Boar's Head meats and cheeses with house-made bread and sauces. Sandwiches include the Smokestack, the Midnight Cuban, a Reuben and a muffaletta, alongside soups, salads, cookies, craft beer, wine and craft sodas. Hours at the new location weren't confirmed in the coverage, so check before a lunch run.
The Tides Market is the bigger story. Jon and Mary Kate Walker opened the seafood market and restaurant on a busy stretch of Main Street in late 2021, and it grew from a mix of grocery, fish counter and counter-service kitchen into a full-service restaurant. The Michelin Guide listed it as recommended in its Florida guide in both 2025 and 2026. In September, the New York Times named it to its 2026 Restaurant List of 50 favorite places in America. Times food writer Brett Anderson singled out the fried fish sandwiches and blackened yellowtail snapper. The Tides was the only Tampa Bay restaurant on the list and one of just two in Florida, along with Tin Tin in Miami. Jon Walker told the Times he was "completely awestruck." Expect national attention to make a table harder to get this fall.
Further up the street, The Barking Lot is still a plan. It's a 1,058-square-foot dog-friendly tavern at 946 Main St., with a parking parcel on Delaware Street, and commissioners approved its site plan 4–1 in February. The approval requires the owners to address the city's Technical Review Committee comments before getting a building permit, and to sign a five-space staff parking agreement before receiving a certificate of occupancy. We didn't find any public update on construction or an opening date.
October between the pier and Main Street
With the pier open and the marina still fenced, most of October's calendar happens on Main Street and at Folly Farm Nature Preserve. City and venue calendars change, so confirm before you go.
- Wednesday, Oct. 7, 6–7 p.m.: "Sugar and Enslavement on the Manatee," a history talk at the Safety Harbor Museum & Cultural Center.
- Friday, Oct. 9, 6:30–8:30 p.m.: Pickin' in the Park with Coconut Grove Band at the Folly Farm Nature Preserve gazebo.
- Oct. 10 and 11: Backtrack Blues Band on Saturday and Chris Beard on Sunday at the Safety Harbor Art & Music Center, 706 2nd St. N.
- Sundays, Oct. 11, 18 and 25, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.: Sunday Market on Main Street at John Wilson Park and Gazebo.
- Friday, Oct. 16: the 3rd Friday Street Celebration runs 6–10 p.m. across nine blocks of Main Street, and Quinn Sullivan plays the Art & Music Center the same night.
- Thursday, Oct. 22: Pints of Science at the Art & Music Center, which returns Nov. 19.
- Oct. 23 and 24, 7:30–10 p.m.: Fright Nights at Folly Farm Nature Preserve.
- Friday, Oct. 30: Main Street Trick-or-Treat runs 4:30–6:30 p.m., with Main Street closed from Bayshore Boulevard to 9th Avenue. Blacklight Bingo follows at the Museum & Cultural Center from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
The Safety Harbor Resort & Spa keeps its weekly routine going all month, with karaoke in the Santorini Lobby Lounge on Thursdays from 7 to 10 p.m. and live DJs on Fridays and Saturdays from 8 to 11 p.m. If you're coming from the waterfront, Waterfront Park's north entrance near Jefferson Street is the way in until the Veterans Memorial Lane lot reopens.
Safety Harbor is still rebuilding, and at Shore2Bay Realty we track the details that shape daily life here, from the marina's reopening date to the corner where Frenchy's is moving in. If you own near the waterfront or along Main Street and want to know how this fall's changes might affect your home's value, Get Your Instant Home Valuation and we'll go over it with you.
