Belmont-DeVilliers Was Built for Nightlife. This Year It Got Mornings.
October 15, 2026
October 15, 2026
Belmont-DeVilliers made its name after dark. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Savoy Ballroom and its neighbor, Abe's 506 Club, were stops on the Chitlin' Circuit, the network of venues for Black artists. The circuit brought Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Louis Armstrong to these few blocks, according to the Pensacola News Journal. In 2026 the district added the hours it had been missing. You can now order an espresso on West Jackson Street at 6 a.m., take a midday yoga class on DeVilliers, get lunch from one of two new kitchens, and still finish with the Saturday blues set on Belmont. Most of the new daytime businesses are on the ground floor of a building named for that old ballroom.
The Savoy Ballroom was a two-story nightclub. After the neighborhood declined in the late 1960s, the building sat empty and fell into disrepair until it was torn down in the 1990s. Its name came back in 2020, when Savoy Place opened as an apartment building at DeVilliers and Wright streets.
Studer Properties always planned retail for the ground floor. Even so, the space stayed quiet for years because, as the Pensacola News Journal reported in March 2025, the pandemic and rising construction costs made it hard to sign retailers. At the time, Rishy Studer was leading the plan to turn the space into a marketplace. She described what she hoped it would become in plain terms:
"A place you can get your veggies, pick up your bread for dinner − anything you might want."
In the same PNJ article, she summed up the goal for the neighborhood in one line: "Our wish is just to activate this area."
That plan had a target date of July 2025 for the first tenant. It ran late. Great Harvest Bread Co. was open by May 2026, about ten months behind schedule. Once the first tenant opened, though, the others followed quickly.
In 2025, Studer listed the kinds of tenants she was talking with. Comparing that list with the businesses now open shows how much of the plan made it, and how much of it moved across the street.
| Planned for Savoy Place, March 2025 | What's open in 2026 |
|---|---|
| A sweet and savory bakery | Great Harvest Bread Co., serving sandwiches, sweets and bread from freshly milled flour |
| A yoga studio | Bliss Yoga and Mindfulness Studio |
| Plant and produce stands | Aliff Acres Farm, Sugar Bird's Sweet Confections and Flowers By Cindy set up as vendors at the August grand opening |
| A gelato cart | Handcrafted gelato arrived, but across the street at Foxtail Coffee Co. |
| A wine bar with tapas | Not among the reported tenants |
The vendor names come from the Pensacola News Journal's coverage of the Aug. 21 grand opening. That coverage describes them as debuting at the celebration and doesn't say whether they will stay as permanent tenants.
The list left out two of the most substantial tenants. Sage In Bloom, run by chef Ian Whitcomb and his wife, Stacy, serves seasonal farm-to-table food and was open by July 2026. A May 2026 Pensacola News Journal feature described its menu: daily lunch and dinner dishes that change, plus multi-course tasting menus, with hours of 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Those hours were reported before the restaurant opened, so check them before you plan a dinner around them.
Sweet Blessing Café opened in mid-August. Its owners, Gus Rodriguez and Nicole Burford, serve customizable bowls, Puerto Rican and Caribbean-style meats, empanadas and desserts. Bluewater Healthy Living reported hours of 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
Bliss Yoga and Mindfulness Studio lists its address as 311 N. De Villiers St. Its class list includes restorative, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Yin and gentle yoga, along with meditation. The addresses vary from source to source. Savoy Marketplace and Sweet Blessing are reported at 301 N. DeVilliers, Bliss at 311 and Great Harvest at 321, so all of them sit on the same short stretch of DeVilliers.
All of these businesses work daytime hours. The building named for a nightclub now does most of its business between late morning and early evening.
The other half of the change is a gas station. The century-old Sinclair station at 500 W. Jackson St. is listed as Motor Inn Number 2. Amir Michael Fooladi, president and CEO of ParsCo Construction, bought it years ago, got it listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and fixed it up for a new tenant, according to the PNJ.
That tenant is Foxtail Coffee Co.. It opened quietly on Aug. 19 and held its ribbon cutting on Aug. 21. A Pensacola News Journal roundup described a 1,924-square-foot café. Its menu includes small-batch roasted coffee, espresso drinks, breakfast sandwiches, pressed paninis, teas, baked goods, handcrafted gelato and six affogato pairings.
According to Foxtail's location page, the Jackson Street shop opens at 6 a.m. every day. It closes at 6 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Foxtail is a multi-state brand with stores in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina and Arizona. For its Pensacola shop, it chose a restored century-old service station in The Blocks.
Put the hours side by side and the district covers about 16 hours on a Saturday. The new businesses cover the morning and midday, and the long-standing ones cover the evening.
| Time of day | Where | Hours as listed |
|---|---|---|
| 6 a.m. | Foxtail Coffee Co., 500 W. Jackson St. | 6 a.m.–6 p.m. Sun–Thu; 6 a.m.–8 p.m. Fri–Sat |
| 10 a.m. Sunday | Five Sisters' Blues Café jazz brunch | 10 a.m.–4 p.m. |
| 11 a.m. | Sage In Bloom and Sweet Blessing Café, Savoy Marketplace | 11 a.m.–8 p.m. Mon–Sat, as reported |
| 11 a.m. weekdays | Blue Dot Barbeque | Lunch hours only, closed weekends; call ahead |
| 11 a.m. to close | Five Sisters' Blues Café, 421 W. Belmont St. | 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Mon–Thu; 11 a.m.–10 p.m. Fri–Sat |
| 6 p.m. Saturday | Glenn Parker Band at Five Sisters | 6–10 p.m. |
At 8 p.m., the Savoy Marketplace kitchens close and Foxtail's weekend hours end. Five Sisters stays open until 9 or 10. On most nights, the evening ends where it always has, on Belmont.
Five Sisters' Blues Café at 421 W. Belmont St. holds most of the district's after-dark hours. The Southern menu includes jambalaya, fried chicken, collard greens and mac and cheese. Its weekly schedule is the most dependable one in the neighborhood. Wing Wednesday starts at 4 p.m. with 75-cent wings, the Glenn Parker Band plays every Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m., and jazz brunch runs Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Blue Dot Barbeque is the other anchor, and it has never been part of the nightlife. Pensacola Energy's history of the neighborhood says Blue Dot has served DeVilliers Street since the 1940s and still serves burgers. Its listed hours are short. They show weekday lunch only, ending by mid-afternoon, and no weekend hours. That listing isn't maintained by the business, so call before you go. For decades, Blue Dot was one of the few reasons to be on DeVilliers before dark. Now it has neighbors that keep similar hours.
Five Sisters' calendar has dates on the books for this week. Today is Monday, Oct. 12. A one-week plan that hits both the new daytime spots and the older evening ones could look like this:
None of the sources we reviewed confirmed a neighborhood-wide fall event. The Belmont-DeVilliers Street Market started in March 2025, and organizers hoped at the time to make it monthly. We couldn't confirm that it's still running on a regular schedule this fall, so check with organizers before planning a Saturday around it.
If a coffee shop opening at 6 a.m. or a marketplace finally filling in down your street has you wondering how your block has changed, I'd be glad to talk it through. Start with William Maybin and get your instant home valuation. I'll show you what's moved on your street since the last time you checked.
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