Ten restaurants across New Smyrna Beach start serving three-course prix fixe menus on Thursday as Coastal Catch Restaurant Month launches for its third year, with dinners priced at $39 and $59 built around locally caught and grown ingredients. The 31-day promotion runs through October, spotlighting chefs who source seafood directly from Florida waters and nearby farms.
The event debuted in October 2024, according to 93.1 Coast Country. The event was extended into mid-November after Hurricane Milton disrupted the region. This year marks the third annual installment, but the roster has thinned considerably since launch — from over 15 restaurants in 2024 down to 12 in 2025, and now 10 for 2026, according to reporting from Allyson Wisebird. Marketing materials continue to frame the event as growing, even as the participant list has consolidated around a smaller core of returning chefs, per the same analysis.
A Chef Who Calls NSB the Napa Valley of Restaurants
Among the anchor participants is Third Wave Cafe & Wine Bar on Flagler Avenue, where executive chef Dave Moscoso has spent 20 years mastering his craft at restaurants around the country, according to Orlando Weekly. Moscoso, a James Beard Foundation member, told the outlet that New Smyrna Beach is the Napa Valley of restaurants. He credited his Ecuadorian and European heritage — and his immigrant father — with shaping the food he cooks today.
Moscoso transformed Third Wave from a small salad-and-pizza joint into what Orlando Weekly's sponsored feature calls a destination for foodies, now built around Florida-sourced and caught seafood. The cafe offers its own Coastal Catch prix fixe menu this month. Third Wave also participates in the James Beard Foundation's Smart Catch program, which maintains sustainable seafood sourcing standards, Southern Living reported in a piece hosted at nsbvc.com.
James Beard Names Beyond Moscoso
Moscoso isn't the only James Beard-recognized name on the Coastal Catch lineup. Spanish River Grill & Wine Bar, run by executive chef Henry Salgado alongside his wife Michele on South Dixie Freeway, has notched two James Beard Award semifinalist nominations for Best Chef: South, in 2012 and 2014, according to the restaurant's own site, Spanish River Grill. Chefs across the participating restaurants source directly from regional producers including SharkBite Oysters and Fletcher Family Farm, a supply chain connection the New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau highlighted in a Facebook post promoting the event.
The menu variety extends well past seafood. Other participating kitchens are serving Italian pastas, Mexican fusion dishes, California-inspired plates, and cheeseburgers, per Orlando Weekly's rundown. Sonapa Grille draws its inspiration from Sonoma County and Napa Valley wines and cuisine, offering hand-crafted pasta alongside surf-and-turf specialties. Norwood's Restaurant and Treehouse Bar, meanwhile, serves fresh local fish and shellfish from an upper deck set beside hundred-year-old Florida oak trees.
A New Smyrna Institution Since 1946
Norwood's has served New Smyrna Beach since 1946, when it opened in a building that had previously housed a Pan Am gas station and a piggy bank factory, according to a history compiled by Casago. The property later expanded with its 21-and-over Treehouse Bar in 2015 and added Roots Bar in 2019.
Diners hoping to plan a route through all 10 stops can lean on the Coastal Catch Trail, a GPS-enabled feature built into the official New Smyrna Beach app that maps participating restaurants, per Wisebird's reporting. Menus and digital trail maps began loading into the app in September ahead of Thursday's launch. Full menus are also posted at nsbcoastalcatch.com.
Who's Actually Paying for the Promotion
Coastal Catch is co-organized by the New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau, which legally operates as the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority, a public subdivision of Volusia County created under Florida Statute §125.0104 to oversee regional tourism, according to the bureau's own about page. The authority's work centers on regional tourism.
Coastal Catch isn't the only draw pulling visitors toward Flagler Avenue this month. The corridor also hosts the month-long Great NSB Pumpkin Hunt and the monthly Flagler Avenue Wine Walk, scheduled for October 24, according to a roundup from Going Luxury Group. Unlike those two events, which stay confined to Flagler Avenue, Coastal Catch extends across the wider New Smyrna Beach area, the same report notes. Whatever the final headcount of participating kitchens, the event's organizers are betting that a monthlong showcase of the region's seafood culture — anchored by chefs pulling straight from local waters and farms — keeps pulling Central Florida diners toward the coast.
