Pelican Opened on Nine Mile Road One Room at a Time
November 12, 2026
November 12, 2026
"Customers can sit anywhere on the bar side or on the restaurant side, but they can order any kind of food they want," Reddy Kandala told the Pensacola News Journal about Pelican, his new complex at 1420 W. Nine Mile Road.
The same idea runs through the whole building. Pelican puts a liquor store, a pub, a white-leather-booth dining room and a virtual reality arcade under one name and one roof, across from West Nine Mile Towncenter on Ensley's stretch of Nine Mile. Each piece serves a different crowd at a different hour. A shopper picking up wine at 10 a.m., a family finishing a VR race before 8 p.m. and a group watching a UFC card at midnight are all going to the same address. Pelican opened in stages, beginning with the liquor store, and the order it opened in matches the way its day is laid out.
The liquor store came first. According to the PNJ, Pelican Liquors opened a few weeks ahead of everything else with more than 6,000 products on the shelves. The store lists its hours as 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, so it's the only part of Pelican open in the morning.
The store also stocks the bar next door. House cocktails are made with top-shelf liquor, and the wine-by-the-bottle list draws on the same inventory. Three of the soft-opening cocktails show the range. The Cherry Pickin' is Woodford Reserve with mint, sugar, lemon and cherry. The Garden District is Tito's with limoncello, basil and lemon. The Nine Mile Mule, named for the road outside, mixes pineapple, blackberry, lime juice, ginger beer and Wheatley.
The restaurant opened next, split into two rooms that look nothing alike. Since you can order from either menu in either room, the choice is about atmosphere, not food.
| The bar and grill | Pelican Grill | |
|---|---|---|
| The look | Wood-paneled room modeled on a classic Irish pub, with giant TVs and stained glass chandeliers | White leather booths and hand-strung crystal chandeliers |
| On the screens | NFL Sunday Ticket and UFC fights | None mentioned |
| The food it's built around | Wings, loaded fries, Nashville hot chicken sliders, the Pelican burger, a shrimp platter, pizzas including a Margherita and a Philly cheesesteak | Seafood gumbo, duck and andouille boudin balls, Gulf snapper Creole meunière, grouper Pontchartrain, seared scallops, teres major |
| Something to do | Shuffleboard with digital scoring, plus planned pool tournaments, bingo and karaoke | Dessert, with bananas foster crème brûlée and bread pudding on the menu |
The pub has a self-serve setup that Kandala already runs at Whiskey Barrel, his bar at 3810 W. Navy Blvd. A wall of high-end whiskey unlocks when you scan a preloaded payment card, and the draft beer works the same way, so you pour as much or as little of each brand as you want.
The dining room's soft-opening entrées were built for a sit-down dinner. The 8-ounce Creekstone Farms teres major comes over black truffle Creole cream cheese grits with a brandied mushroom peppercorn demi-glace. The Gulf snapper is pan-seared and served with roasted garlic whipped potatoes and haricots verts. Because the menus cross over, someone at the bar can order the gumbo during the game, and someone in a booth can order wings.
Pelican's schedule is where the building's split personality shows. The PNJ reported two sets of hours. One covered the soft opening that began Oct. 19. The other was a regular schedule set to start Nov. 7, the date chosen for the grand opening.
| Day | Soft-opening hours | Regular hours announced to start Nov. 7 |
|---|---|---|
| Monday to Thursday | 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. | 3 p.m. to midnight |
| Friday | 2 p.m. to midnight | 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. |
| Saturday | 11 a.m. to midnight | 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. |
| Sunday | 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. | 11 a.m. to midnight |
Under both schedules, all VR gaming ends at 8 p.m. every day. On a Saturday under the announced regular hours, that leaves nine hours for the arcade, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and then six more hours with only the bar and dining rooms, until 2 a.m. The afternoon belongs to people in VR goggles, and the late night belongs to the pub. If you're planning a late visit, check the Pelican Bar & Grill Instagram for current hours before you go.
The VR areas were planned as the last part of the building to open. The PNJ described them as three separate spaces.
These rooms explain the 8 p.m. cutoff. A flight simulator and a late-night pub draw different crowds, and the schedule keeps them in different parts of the day.
The plans go past the current building. The PNJ's report listed what Kandala planned once the whole facility opened in November:
The third item is the largest. A liquor store, a pub, a dining room and an arcade already make one address that people visit for different reasons at different hours. Retail space next door would add daytime errands to the same lot.
Pelican was one of six restaurant openings the PNJ counted across the Pensacola area in October. Two other new places a short drive east on N. Davis Highway follow the same pattern of several kinds of outing under one roof.
Launch Pensacola opened at 8102 N. Davis Highway in a 31,000-square-foot building. The PNJ's preview listed trampolines, duckpin bowling, an arcade, interactive Pixel Floor and Valo Arena games, dodgeball, a ninja course, a stunt jump and toddler soft play. Its Krave restaurant and bar was planned to serve pizza, wings, beer, wine, cocktails and specialty milkshakes. Launch's full grand opening is planned for Saturday, Nov. 14.
Casa Luvia opened at 7748 N. Davis Highway in the former Denny's. According to the PNJ, the menu includes fajitas marinated for 24 hours, tableside guacamole, molcajetes with shrimp, steak, chicken or grilled cactus, house-style micheladas and a baked banana brûlée.
Put the three together and a whole Saturday fits on the north end. Launch's trampolines and duckpin bowling can fill the morning. Pelican's VR gaming is scheduled to end at 8 p.m. Dinner can be gumbo at Pelican Grill or a molcajete at Casa Luvia. The pub at 1420 W. Nine Mile Road is planned to stay open after that, under the announced regular hours, until 2 a.m.
New businesses on Nine Mile are part of what I follow in north Pensacola, because what opens down the street helps shape what a neighborhood is like to live in. If you own in Ensley and want to know where your home stands this fall, William Maybin can help. Get your instant home valuation, and give me a call if you'd like to talk it through.
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