50th and France Restaurants in Edina: What’s Changing

"We've hit a glass ceiling, and it's not been overnight, it's been years," Ryan Burnet told the Edina Planning Commission last September, explaining why he was closing Cocina del Barrio after fifteen years on France Avenue. He wasn't announcing a failure. He was explaining a decision that, once you trace it, turns out to connect to almost every other storefront that's changed hands at 50th and France in the past twelve months.

If you've lived near the intersection this past year, you've probably lost track of what's actually open. Barrio closed. Edina Grill closed. Salut closed. D'Amico & Sons closed. The Lynhall closed. That's five storefronts within a few blocks of each other, and if you tried to follow each closure as its own story, you'd come away thinking the neighborhood was simply churning, the way commercial strips sometimes do.

It isn't churning. It's consolidating around one operator, and once you see the pattern, the rest of the reshuffle reads differently.

The Common Denominator

Chef Daniel del Prado and his DDP Restaurant Group are now behind more of the district's marquee projects than any single announcement has spelled out. Add them up and the list looks like this:

• Dexter's, the sports bar with a stake from del Prado's group, opened in late 2024.
• Thérèse, an upscale French brasserie named for del Prado's mother, took over the former Lynhall space at 3945 Market St. inside the Nolan Mains development and opened in November 2025.
• Noma Hi-Fi, a dimly lit cocktail den with vinyl and live DJs, opened at 3914 W. 50th St. in January 2026.
• Americana, a new American concept with what del Prado's team has described as a Mad Men aesthetic, is still under construction in the old Barrio space at 5036 France Ave. S. and is projected to open by late 2026.

That's four addresses within roughly a five minute walk of each other, all tracing back to the same restaurant group. Burnet, who owns the Barrio building, is partnering with del Prado on Americana specifically because their working relationship goes back to Burch Steak, where Burnet handled ownership and del Prado worked the kitchen. They've already opened Porzana and Minari together in Minneapolis. This is their third joint project, not their first.

What Actually Opened While You Were Looking Elsewhere

Thérèse has been open since early November, serving steak frites, croque monsieur, and French onion soup in a room del Prado has described as feeling like a Paris apartment. Noma Hi-Fi followed two months later with cocktails in the $15 to $17 range and a snack menu built around gyoza and milk bread with nori butter.

The most recent arrival is about to become the most visible one. General Sports Bar is set to open September 8 at 5034 France Ave., in the space Salut Bar Americain vacated. It's not a DDP project. It comes from Marty Collins and Brett Johnson, the team behind Nolo's Kitchen in the North Loop, and the name is a direct nod to General Sports, the hockey equipment shop that used to anchor the neighborhood. Collins remembers going there as a kid to get his skates sharpened.

The bar seats around 140 indoors, expanding to roughly 180 with a dog-friendly patio in warmer months, and carries more than 30 TVs plus a basement game room with a golf simulator and darts. Johnson summed up the pitch simply:

"There really wasn't a true sports bar in Edina, especially at 50th and France. We wanted to create a place where people can come as they are, watch a game, have a great meal, and just have a good time."

What's Still Behind Plywood

Two more projects are close but not there yet. Smith Coffee & Cafe, expanding from its original Eden Prairie farmhouse location, is renovating the former D'Amico & Sons space at 3948 W. 50th St. and is now targeting an October opening. Owner Alex Schuster has said the space will seat about 90 inside plus patio seating. The timeline slipped partly because what passed code in the 1980s doesn't pass code in 2026, meaning the kitchen's electrical and plumbing needed a full rebuild before the dining room could open. The Edina Housing and Redevelopment Authority stepped in with a $24,000 SPARC grant in August to help cover the permanent improvements, one of the last grants the program will issue before it winds down at the end of the year.

Americana's timeline has its own friction. The redesign by Christian Dean Architecture calls for a glass-enclosed second-floor conservatory and a darker brick facade, adding roughly 1,500 square feet to the building. That expansion pushed the floor area ratio from 0.94 to 1.2, which required a parking variance from the city. The Edina Planning Commission approved it 5-1 last September, with the one dissenting vote coming not from opposition to the restaurant itself but from a commissioner who said his job was to reference the code, not to make exceptions based on what he'd personally like to see in the neighborhood.

A third fall project, Smithson, is coming to Southdale Center from Sharon and Randy Stanley, the team behind Baldamar and 6Smith, with a steak and seafood menu.

Why the Concentration Matters More Than the Count

It would be easy to file all of this under generic gentrification and move on. But five storefronts turning over to five different owners would tell a different story than four of them tracing back to one restaurant group operating within a five minute radius of each other. Rebecca Sorensen, the executive director of 50th and France, said as much when Americana's plans were first announced, framing the redesign as something that would add architectural presence to the corner as much as a new place to eat.

What that concentration actually changes for a neighbor is the shape of an evening out. A cluster of connected concepts, sharing design sensibilities and in some cases beverage programs like Megan Luedtke's cocktail work across DDP's properties, means you can move from dinner at Thérèse to a nightcap at Noma Hi-Fi without leaving the block. That's a different neighborhood experience than five isolated openings scattered across the district would produce.

The Things That Aren't Actually New

If you were a Barrio regular, the queso didn't disappear. It moved. Barrio still operates in downtown Minneapolis and at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport's Terminal 2, and the Edina location honored gift cards through its final day. The neighborhood lost a location, not the menu.

This Weekend, While the Plywood Comes Down

If you want a low-key way to see the district in transition, the Edina Fall into the Arts Festival runs September 12 and 13 at Centennial Lakes Park. It's free, features more than 240 artists working in everything from pottery to wearable art, and benefits the Edina First Responders Fund. It's a good excuse to walk the same stretch of France Avenue where half the storefronts have new names on the windows, and see for yourself which ones have actually opened their doors.

That's the real distinction worth holding onto. This isn't a neighborhood quietly falling apart and randomly refilling. It's one operator building critical mass, block by block, while a handful of independent owners fill in around the edges. Knowing which is which is the difference between reading the reshuffle as chaos and reading it as a plan already in motion.

If you're the kind of neighbor who likes knowing what's actually happening a few blocks over, that's the same instinct I bring to how I work with buyers and sellers across Edina and the rest of the Twin Cities. Local detail is the whole job. If you ever want to talk about what's changing in your corner of town, or anywhere else in the metro, Kami Gerald would love to connect.