Ask anyone who eats along Mills Avenue on a Friday night how they get across the street near Canton, and you'll get some version of the same answer: you wait for a gap in traffic and you go. There's no marked crossing at that block, just five lanes of state road between you and whatever restaurant you're headed to. "You can run across, but never walk," one Orlando resident told Fox 35 this spring, describing the stretch as a fleeing-for-your-life kind of situation.
That description is about to matter to a lot more people. More than 20 new restaurants and businesses are landing in the Mills 50 district over the next several months, and according to reporting from Spectrum News 13 on August 9, most of them are expected to open before the year is out. The city has also spent two years trying to fix the exact intersection where a lot of that growth is concentrated. The restaurants are on track to arrive first.
The list gets long fast
Krispy Rice, a Japanese teppanyaki concept, is taking over the site of a demolished 7-Eleven on North Mills Avenue. Little Sister Dumpling is opening a few doors down. Jiang's Kitchen, Uji Matcha Cafe, Oza Izakaya, Robin's Creamery and a UniMart convenience concept round out a cluster that's opening within blocks of each other. Chef Hung Huynh, the Top Chef Season 3 champion, is bringing his Southeast Asian bar concept Pomelo into the same corridor. None of this counts Bites & Bubbles, the restaurant and bar that's anchored the district since 2007. "We love this district, we've been in this district since 2007," said co-owner Nicholas Olivieri, whose business partner Eddie Nickell is credited with naming Mills 50 itself.
Here's a snapshot of what's changing along the corridor:
| Business | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Bites & Bubbles | Restaurant and bar | Open since 2007 |
| Krispy Rice | Japanese teppanyaki | Opening 2026 |
| Little Sister Dumpling | Fast-casual dumplings | Opening 2026 |
| Jiang's Kitchen | Asian kitchen concept | Opening 2026 |
| Oza Izakaya | Izakaya | Opening 2026 |
| Pomelo | Southeast Asian bar, chef Hung Huynh | Opening 2026 |
| Robin's Creamery | Ice cream | Opening 2026 |
Seven concepts had already opened as of mid-2026, with 14 more expected before the end of the year, a pace that tracks with the district's tight retail market. The submarket that includes Mills 50 has been running a vacancy rate near 2.2 percent, well below metro Orlando's roughly 3.9 percent average, according to data attributed to Cushman & Wakefield. Space here doesn't sit empty long.
Canton Street is where growth and danger overlap
Mills 50 Main Street board president Jeff Dry didn't mince words about where the pressure is landing. "That's one of the major complaints we get of no parking," he said of the district's growth, adding that pedestrian safety is just as urgent as parking. The city's answer has been a proposed midblock crosswalk on Mills Avenue at Canton Street, right by Will's Pub, and Dry has pointed out that the location matters because it's the same stretch where several of the new restaurants are opening.
This isn't a new complaint. Plans to improve safety at that crossing were first raised back in 2018, and the current project traces to a resident request from 2024. A public meeting held on April 28, 2026 at the Colonialtown Neighborhood Center walked residents and business owners through the design: a pedestrian refuge island splitting the crossing into two stages, curb extensions, ADA ramps, and rectangular rapid flashing beacons that pedestrians can trigger themselves. Similar beacons are already in place on Orange Avenue in Ivanhoe Village and on Corrine Drive in Audubon Park, so this isn't an experimental fix. It's a known one, just not yet built here.
Will Walker of Will's Pub and Lil Indie's, who's watched customers make that same "mad dash" across Mills for years, called the project long overdue.
Two clocks, one fall
Here's the mismatch. The city's own timeline, laid out across reporting from Orlando Weekly, Bungalower, and Spectrum News 13, put design work at roughly 60 percent complete in April 2026, with full design targeted for July and construction expected to start sometime this fall. Estimates on what the project will actually cost differ depending on the source. Fox 35 reported a $200,000 project funded through red-light camera fines. Orlando Weekly, reporting closer to the design phase, cited a total estimated cost of $500,000. Neither report specifies a finish date, only a fall construction start.
Line that up against the restaurant timeline and you get a sequence worth sitting with:
- 2024: A resident's request sets the crosswalk project in motion.
- April 28, 2026: The city holds a public design meeting at the Colonialtown Neighborhood Center.
- July 2026: Final design work is targeted for completion.
- Fall 2026: Construction is expected to begin, funded in part by red-light camera revenue.
- End of 2026: Most of the district's 20-plus new restaurants and businesses are expected to be open, per Spectrum News 13's August 9 reporting.
Read straight through, steps four and five land in the same window. Construction starting this fall doesn't mean finished this fall, and there's no public estimate yet for when the beacons and refuge island will actually be usable. That means the corridor is likely to see its highest foot traffic of the year arrive before the safety fix does, not after.
Parking tightens before it loosens
The same lag shows up in parking. A 349-space garage planned for 1212 Woodward Street, which would also include roughly 7,200 square feet of retail space, is still in the planning stage. So is the $92.5 million Emi on 50 apartment project, a nine-story, 336-unit development that recently broke ground nearby and will add more residents within walking distance of the corridor once it's finished. Both projects are aimed at exactly the kind of density Mills 50 is attracting, but neither is open yet. In the meantime, the new restaurants opening this year are filling spaces that mostly rely on street parking and small surface lots, the same parking Dry flagged as a persistent complaint from customers who circle the block and then spill into residential side streets.
What this actually looks like if you live here
If you already live in or around Mills 50, the practical version of all this is simple. The corridor is going to feel busier this fall than it has in years, especially at night, when the district's bar and restaurant scene draws the heaviest foot traffic and the Canton Street crossing is still unmarked. Construction equipment may show up on Mills Avenue before any of it is finished, which has been the pattern with recent utility and roadwork elsewhere in the district. And the businesses driving that energy, Krispy Rice, Little Sister Dumpling, Pomelo, and the rest, are worth the trip. Just budget an extra minute to find the safest place to cross, because for now, that still means walking to a marked intersection instead of the direct route across from wherever you parked.
None of this is a reason to think less of the neighborhood. It's a reason to know it a little better than the headline version everyone else is reading.
Holt Real Estate keeps a close eye on Central Florida neighborhoods like Mills 50 not because we're trying to sell you on them, but because these are the details that shape daily life here long after a For Sale sign comes down. If you're curious what a home in this corridor or anywhere else in Central Florida is actually worth right now, we're happy to put real numbers behind it. Reach out anytime for a free home valuation.
