Walk the restaurant stretch of Franklin Avenue and you will pass at least ten restaurants without crossing a side street. That has been true for years. What changed in 2026 is who is opening them.
Look at the two biggest arrivals this year and a pattern shows up that has nothing to do with menus. The James, which took over the old Primehouse space at 910 Franklin Avenue in June, is not a debut. It is a second location for a restaurant group that already runs The James in Babylon Village and Arlo Kitchen & Bar in Northport. Meli-Estiatorio, which arrived at 815 Franklin Avenue in January, is not a first swing either. Owner Jimmy Tsoumas opened the original Meli in Forest Hills the year before and brought the concept here once it had already proven itself.
That is the story worth paying attention to if you live near Franklin Avenue and care about what is actually going to be there in three years. This strip does not function as a launchpad for someone's first restaurant idea. It functions as a landing spot for concepts that have already worked somewhere else. Understanding why changes how you should think about every new sign that goes up on this block.
The James didn't reinvent anything, and that's the point
Andrew Affa and Steve Squitiro built their reputation on two very different rooms. Arlo Kitchen & Bar sits on a wooded hilltop off Fort Salonga Road in Northport, a setting the partners have said would be nearly impossible to recreate anywhere else on Long Island. The James in Babylon Village, which opened in May 2024 in the former Carriage House space, took a different direction entirely.
When the opportunity to take over Primehouse came up, the two had a real choice to make: build something new in the image of Arlo, or extend the format that was already working in Babylon. They chose the latter. Squitiro was traveling with family when Affa got the call about the space becoming available. It took them less than a week to say yes.
They closed on the deal in November and kept Primehouse running through the transition, retaining the chef and staff that had made the original spot work for six years under owner Art Gustafson. Affa credited that run directly: "He ran a well-oiled operation for six years." The doors closed in early January for the buildout, and The James Garden City opened on Thursday, June 18, 2026, with the same menu, look, and feel as its Babylon counterpart. Wild-caught seafood, prime dry-aged steaks, a raw bar, and a patio built for outdoor dining.
The building itself tells part of the story too. Suite 5 at 910 Franklin Avenue houses Kinha Sushi, a Japanese fusion restaurant that has operated in Garden City since 2010 and moved into this address from a few doors down on Franklin. One building now holds a national steakhouse concept and a sushi restaurant that has already outlasted several of its neighbors on this block.
Meli's arrival came with a Forest Hills résumé already attached
Jimmy Tsoumas grew up in Queens but spent enough time in Garden City to know the block before he ever opened a location on it. Before signing the lease at 815 Franklin Avenue, he had spent time hanging out at the popular Novita and Waterzooi restaurants, watching what already worked on this particular street.
His first Meli location opened in Forest Hills the January before, and once that concept had a track record, he brought it to Garden City. The Garden City location held its preview celebration in late January 2026, an invitation-only event benefiting Life's WORC, a nonprofit headquartered at 1501 Franklin Avenue, close enough to walk from the restaurant. The connection came together through a mutual friend of Tsoumas who happened to sit on the nonprofit's board, which meant the restaurant's debut in this neighborhood was tied to a local cause from its first night rather than treated as a standalone grand opening.
That detail matters less for the menu and more for what it says about how these owners approach the market here. A first-time restaurateur chasing a dream doesn't usually have an existing location's income statement to lean on, or a built-in community connection to draw from on opening night. Someone extending a proven concept does.
The row this all landed on
None of this happened in a vacuum. Franklin Avenue has been calling itself a restaurant row since at least 2021, when Mesita, a Mexican cantina, opened at 825 Franklin Avenue in the former Asian Moon space. Owners John Cestare and Matthew McBride were explicit about what they were joining:
"We see ourselves as a part of Franklin's new restaurant row."
At the time, Cestare named the existing anchors directly: Revel, Novita, Waterzooi, Calogero's, Prime Steakhouse, and Mighty Quinn's. Mesita itself was not McBride and Cestare's first restaurant either. They already operated a Mesita location in Rockville Centre before bringing the concept to Garden City.
Five years later, the roster has grown but the pattern holds. Walking the block today, you would also pass Sparrow Kitchen & Cocktails at 829 Franklin Avenue, serving Mediterranean and Italian small plates built around locally sourced ingredients, and Tap Room at 919 Franklin Avenue, a gastropub with weekend live music and brunch. Garden City Bistro at 662 Franklin Avenue has been serving its wraps and salads to a loyal lunch crowd for years, the kind of neighborhood spot that never needed a rebrand because it never stopped working.
Put the roster together and you get a strip where:
- The James (910 Franklin Ave) extends a Babylon Village concept
- Meli-Estiatorio (815 Franklin Ave) extends a Forest Hills concept
- Mesita (825 Franklin Ave) already had a Rockville Centre location when it arrived here in 2021
- Kinha Sushi (910 Franklin Ave, Suite 5) has run continuously since 2010
- Novita, Waterzooi, Revel, Calogero's, Prime Steakhouse, and Mighty Quinn's anchor the block as long-standing originals
Two categories of restaurant exist here: the long-running originals that built the street's reputation, and the imports that arrived only after proving themselves elsewhere. What you don't find much of is the third category, the untested concept betting its owner's savings on a first attempt. That absence is the actual story.
Why this matters if you eat here more than you shop here
A block that fills up with first-time restaurant owners is a block with real turnover risk. New operators are learning the format, the kitchen, and the neighborhood all at once, and a meaningful share of them do not make it past year two. A block that fills up with second and third locations from operators who already know their numbers is a different kind of block. The James knows exactly what its raw bar and its patio need to do because the same combination is already working in Babylon. Meli knows what a Thursday night looks like because it has already run one in Forest Hills.
That doesn't guarantee any single restaurant survives. It does mean the failure mode looks different. When something doesn't work here, it is more likely to be a market mismatch than an operator learning on the job. And when something does work, as Novita and Waterzooi have for long enough to be name-checked by every new owner explaining why they chose this street, it tends to keep working for a long time.
If you live within walking distance of Franklin Avenue, that is the practical takeaway. The restaurant that opens on your block this year is more likely than not to still be there next year, because whoever signed the lease has already run this exact concept somewhere else and knows what it takes to keep the lights on. That is a different kind of neighborhood than one where every new sign is a coin flip.
The Garden City Chamber of Commerce, marking its centennial year in 2026, kicked off its Summer Promenade Series with the Belmont Festival on Seventh Street in June, drawing thousands of residents downtown for an evening of shopping, dining, and live entertainment. Franklin Avenue sits close enough to that same downtown energy that the restaurants filling in around it are betting on more than a single good night. They are betting on a street that already knows how to bring people out.
If you're weighing whether Garden City is the kind of place where the things you like tend to stick around, Franklin Avenue is as good a data point as any. The street isn't experimenting anymore. It's compounding.
Curious what else is changing in Garden City this year, from the housing side of things? Santillo Realty tracks the neighborhood details that don't show up in a listing description. Let's Connect.
