After more than three decades on Kennedy Boulevard, one of Tampa's most enduring fine-dining names has packed up and moved into Ybor City. Mise en Place, described as a legendary Bay Area restaurant, has relocated to a new storefront on East 8th Avenue, according to FOX 13 Tampa Bay, which reported on the move in a segment presented by reporter Russell Rhodes.
The new location sits on the ground floor of the renovated Casa Gomez office building at 1229 E. 8th Avenue, directly across from José Martí Park, according to 83 Degrees Media. The restaurant's prior home sat inside a 1925 plaza building at 442 W. Kennedy Boulevard across from the University of Tampa, a Grand Central Place address it occupied for over 30 years before hosting a Halloween farewell party there in October 2025, per the same outlet's reporting.
Mise en Place quietly reopened for dinner service in late 2025 ahead of a formal ribbon-cutting on January 9, an event attended by Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and developer Darryl Shaw, according to Visit Tampa Bay. The restaurant's roots go back to 1986, when co-founders Maryann Ferenc and Chef Marty Blitz launched it as a small catering operation serving guest performing artists at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, per Great Chefs. Blitz trained under European Master Chef Milos Cihelka in Detroit before relocating to Florida, the outlet notes.
From Catering Startup to Casa Gomez
The business first operated on Platt Street starting in 1986 before moving to Kennedy Boulevard in 1992, according to 83 Degrees Media's account of the restaurant's timeline. Ferenc, who holds a theater degree from Wayne State University and grew up in Detroit's restaurant industry, worked in food service management at Ruth Eckerd Hall before co-founding the business with Blitz, according to Tampa Magazine. She has since become a civic fixture in Tampa, serving on boards including Visit Tampa Bay, Feeding Tampa Bay, and the Tampa Downtown Partnership, the magazine reports.
The Kennedy Boulevard building the restaurant just vacated was designed in 1925 by M. Leo Elliott, the Tampa architect also responsible for Tampa City Hall and Ybor City's Cuban Club, according to Wikipedia. That property once sat next to Snow Park, which Guinness World Records recognized as the world's smallest city park, per the same entry. Mise en Place holds a venue recommendation in the Michelin Guide, where inspectors point to its French-inspired New American cuisine, seasonal menu rotation, and craft cocktail program.
A Deliberate Push West in Ybor City
The relocation was not a passive real estate decision. Darryl Shaw, CEO of Casa Ybor and lead developer behind the 50-acre Gasworx master-planned development, personally recruited Mise en Place as an anchor tenant meant to draw fine dining into Ybor's western entrance, according to 83 Degrees Media's earlier coverage. Gasworx is a multi-phase project designed to physically link Ybor City to downtown Tampa, the outlet notes.
The move also reflects a broader shift in where Ybor City's dining dollars are landing. For decades, the neighborhood's restaurant and tourist traffic concentrated east of 15th Street around historic anchors like the Columbia Restaurant, but 83 Degrees Media reports that upscale dining rooms are now drifting westward toward the Casa Gomez block and Gasworx rather than clustering along 7th Avenue. Mise en Place's arrival on East 8th Avenue puts a nearly 40-year-old culinary name at the center of that geographic realignment.
Beyond its main dining room, the Mise en Place hospitality group has built out other Tampa outposts over the years, including running the SONO Café at the Tampa Museum of Art and a location at Tampa International Airport, according to Wikipedia. The group has also operated pop-up markets, private banquet facilities, and spinoff eateries throughout its history, the entry adds. Now, with its flagship settled into Casa Gomez, that legacy enters what amounts to a third chapter — one unfolding at the edge of a historic district being reshaped in real time.
