The first full-service restaurant in a downtown Fort Lauderdale park is set to make its debut.
Created by Specialty Restaurants, the family-owned hospitality group behind Miami’s Rusty Pelican, Sweetwaters is opening at Huizenga Park at the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and Andrews Avenue. The restaurant is opening after the park’s $15 million renovation, which also includes the addition of Ophelia, a mobile bakery and coffee spot house in a vintage RV that first opened in Miami in 2025.
Sweetwaters, however, is an entirely different beast than Ophelia (which, for the record, makes delicious coffee and baked goods). The new restaurant covers almost 10,000 square feet along the New River, with indoor seating for 121 diners, a 12-seat bar, a 90-seat riverfront patio and yet another terrace facing Huizenga Park with room for 44…