Edina is getting six new restaurants this fall, and not one of them is an unknown. Every operator behind this season's openings already runs a restaurant somewhere else in the Twin Cities, which means the usual guessing game of a new sign in a familiar storefront does not really apply this year. If you have eaten at Baldamar, Burch Steak, or the original Smith Coffee inside its Eden Prairie farmhouse, you already have a rough sense of what is about to open a few miles from where you live.
That is a different story than "Edina is getting a lot of new restaurants," which is the version showing up everywhere else. The more useful version is this: almost the entire fall wave is clustering around 50th & France and inside Southdale Center, with restaurants run by people whose other restaurants you can walk into tonight and taste for yourself.
The Openings Cluster in Two Parts of Edina
Most of what is opening in Edina this fall is concentrated around 50th & France, with one opening inside Southdale Center. That is worth pausing on. The season's launches cluster in two parts of Edina's commercial map.
At Nolan Mains, two concepts are moving into what were previously separate restaurant spaces at 3945 Market Street. Mr. Paul's Supper Club, a New Orleans-inspired concept with a counter-service sibling called Mr. Paul's Po'boys and Jams, is set to open this October in the former Arezzo Ristorante space, serving steaks, chops, seafood, and Creole and Cajun touches alongside traditional po'boys. In the former Lynhall space in the same development, chef Daniel del Prado is opening Thérèse, an upscale French brasserie built around steak frites, croque monsieur, escargot, and French onion soup, expected to open in early November.
At Southdale Center, Sharon and Randy Stanley, the team behind Baldamar and 6Smith, are opening Smithson, a 200-seat steak and seafood restaurant with both a connection to the mall and a separate exterior entrance. The menu pairs formal steakhouse fare with casual items like burgers and sandwiches. A restaurant of that caliber choosing a shopping center over a standalone storefront is not the kind of decision an operator makes lightly, and it says something about where Southdale's ownership believes the center is heading.
The Names Doing the Actual Work
As the Star Tribune reported, Del Prado is not opening one restaurant in Edina this fall. He is opening three. Thérèse is the first. The second is Americana, which will replace Cocina del Barrio at 5036 France Ave after that restaurant's final day on October 1, closing out 15 years on France Avenue. A third project, details not yet announced, is already confirmed to be in the works. That is an unusual amount of one chef's attention concentrated in a single Edina block within the span of a few months.
Americana is a partnership between del Prado and Ryan Burnet, who owned Cocina del Barrio for those 15 years and was part of the opening ownership group at Burch Steak, a reference point Edina diners will recognize. The new restaurant is planned as a new American concept with a Mad Men-era sensibility, and the remodel includes a glass-enclosed rooftop patio designed by Christian Dean Architecture. Barrio's queso and tequila are not disappearing from the Twin Cities, they are simply moving: the Minneapolis location and the outpost at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport's Terminal 2 will continue operating, and gift cards bought at the Edina location will still be honored there.
Smith Coffee & Cafe is making a similar move, minus the sentimentality of a 15-year closure. Owner Ann Schuster is bringing her original concept, a quaint cafe inside a historic Eden Prairie farmhouse, to the former D'Amico & Sons space at 3948 W. 50th St. The cafe plans to be open daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., with pizza nights a possible future addition, and a grand opening anticipated sometime this fall.
Even the least chef-driven opening of the season comes with a résumé attached. General Sports Bar, which opened September 8 inside the former Salut Bar Americain space at 5034 France Ave., comes from the team behind Nolo's Kitchen and arrives with more than 25 televisions for anyone planning their fall Sunday around football rather than French onion soup.
A Timeline Worth Actually Marking
Spread across three months, here is what lands where.
| Restaurant | Operator | Location | Expected Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Sports Bar | Nolo's Kitchen team | 5034 France Ave (former Salut) | Opened Sept. 8, 2026 |
| Cocina del Barrio closes | Ryan Burnet | 5036 France Ave | Last day Oct. 1, 2026 |
| Mr. Paul's Supper Club | New Orleans-inspired concept | Nolan Mains (former Arezzo) | October 2026 |
| Smith Coffee & Cafe | Ann Schuster | 3948 W. 50th St (former D'Amico's) | This fall |
| Smithson | Sharon and Randy Stanley (Baldamar, 6Smith) | Southdale Center | Fall 2026 |
| Thérèse | Daniel del Prado | Nolan Mains (former Lynhall) | Early November 2026 |
| Americana | Daniel del Prado and Ryan Burnet | 5036 France Ave (former Cocina del Barrio) | Later in 2026 |
Read that way, the season has a rhythm. September belongs to the sports bar crowd. Early October is the actual handoff, with Barrio's last service on the first of the month. October itself brings the first of the sit-down chef concepts. November brings the second. Americana, the most extensively remodeled of the group, follows once construction wraps.
What This Actually Changes for a Saturday Night
None of this requires waiting on reviews to figure out whether a new restaurant is worth a reservation. If you know what a plate at Baldamar costs and how it is plated, you already know roughly what to expect walking into Smithson, minus the standalone building and plus a mall entrance. If Burch Steak's version of a good steak has ever been your order, that same sensibility is what Burnet is bringing to Americana, filtered through del Prado's kitchen. If the Eden Prairie farmhouse version of Smith Coffee has been worth the drive on a Saturday morning, the reason to know about the 50th & France location is that the drive gets a lot shorter.
That is the part of this fall's restaurant news that is easy to miss if you are only counting new addresses. Edina is not absorbing six unfamiliar concepts and hoping they work out. It is absorbing six known quantities, run by people who have already built a following elsewhere in the Twin Cities, clustered around 50th & France or inside Southdale Center, which most residents already visit for something else entirely.
That makes this fall less of a gamble and more of an expansion. The people cooking your dinner in November were already cooking someone's dinner in October, just a few miles away.
The Steve Schmitz Team has spent decades getting to know Edina block by block, which is part of why we notice things like this before they show up on a menu review site. If you want a heads up the next time a familiar name lands a new address in the neighborhood, reach out and we will keep you in the loop.