A week after Crispy Cones opened, Kevin Schmidt was taking orders between very short nights of sleep. "I slept for three hours on Sunday, and five last night," he told The Destin Log. His shop sits in the strip next to Walmart on Emerald Coast Parkway. For most of the year, nobody drives there to see Destin. They drive there to buy paper towels.
Crispy Cones fits a pattern in this summer's openings. Most of the new places that serve people on an ordinary Tuesday were started by owner-operators with ties to the area. They opened in a shopping center, a strip plaza, and a former lodge building on a side street, not at a waterfront address.
A Lodge Building on Mountain Drive
LocOhana Tropical Grill opened July 2 in the old Elks Lodge building at the corner of Mountain Drive and Palmetto Street. The brand isn't from here. It started on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, and already had a second location in Fort Pierce. The owner's route to Destin is the local part.
Weber Coryell joined the Navy in 2014. He came through EOD school in the Niceville area, later came back as an instructor, and after ten years of service he was ready to be home with family more. He had assumed his next step would be "flipping houses or something real estate related." Then he called his old dive-school roommate, who had founded the grill, and heard the company was looking for its next location.
"We knew we liked it here, liked the community and wanted to put our roots down." Weber Coryell, owner of LocOhana Tropical Grill, to The Destin Log
Coryell said getting the doors open took two years. According to him, the jerk chicken bowl is the top seller: chicken marinated for 24 hours over island rice, corn, black beans, and Caribbean guacamole, finished with bongo drizzle. His own pick is the salmon bowl with chipotle aioli, served with a side salad in mango vinaigrette. The menu also has blackened shrimp, tuna, and mahi mahi bowls, plus a vegetarian bowl built on a chopped veggie burger with fajita veggies.
A former lodge a block off the main road keeps the place close to the rest of town. For many families here, the Emerald Coast story runs through Niceville and the base as much as through the beach, and this owner's does too.
The Strip Next to Walmart
Back on the Parkway, Crispy Cones is at 16055 Emerald Coast Parkway, Unit 104. It held a VIP party on Aug. 13 and opened to the public Aug. 14. The product is soft-serve in a dough cone grilled rotisserie-style, and the business has appeared on Shark Tank.
That sounds like a tourist draw, but Schmidt described the early crowd differently. He credited family, the local community, Facebook, and influencers, and at the VIP party people waited both inside and outside. A dessert shop beside a big-box store gets repeat traffic from people already out running errands. In late September, as summer visitors thin out, those are the customers a Parkway shop depends on.
City Market Beachside Gets a Coffee Counter
The newest arrival is due today. Lucky Goat Coffee announced Lucky Goat City Market for 36150 Emerald Coast Parkway, Suite 107, with a Sept. 24 opening. The Destin Chamber listed a grand-opening ribbon cutting for Sept. 23. The date already slipped once: a June Chamber note said the owners were aiming for late August. As of this writing, the company's main locations page still shows the Destin café as "Coming Soon," so a quick check before your first visit is a good idea.
This one also fits the pattern. Lucky Goat is a Tallahassee roaster founded 16 years ago, but the Destin café is owned and run by Tom and Koley Houle. They live in the Destin area and came back to Florida after moving out of state for work.
The address is City Market Beachside, which the center describes as a lifestyle shopping center. City Market Bayside is directly across the Parkway. The café's neighbors make it easy to combine stops:
- Smallcakes, Destin Pilates, and Blue Iguana Taco Bar, which Lucky Goat names as nearby
- Chicken Salad Chick, Destiny Nail Salon, and Healthy Coast Meals, all in the center's directory
Posted hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. The menu covers espresso, cold brew, single-origin coffee, seasonal drinks, chai, matcha, and pastries. A September feature in Destin Life said the pastries would come from Blue Mountain Bakery. New cafés often adjust hours in their first weeks, so treat the posted schedule as a starting point.
What Opened at the Harbor, and Who It Serves
The harbor got a new business this year too, and its model is different. The Florida Tasting Room and The Candy Bar held its ribbon cutting with the Destin Chamber on April 13 at 34 Harbor Blvd., Suites 110 to 114, in HarborWalk Village. Owners Kristin and Jason Fackler already run tasting rooms in Hilton Head and Savannah. Destin is their third location and the first to add candy.
The layout suits a harbor stroll. Wine, beer, and moonshine for adults are on one side. On the other is a wall of candy with barrels of salt-water taffy, a smoothie machine, and a 5-pound gummy bear. Kids can fill a sand bucket and carry it to the beach afterward. It's a good place to take visiting family with kids, and that's how residents are most likely to use it. The Parkway and Mountain Drive openings are the ones built around a regular routine.
Where Visiting Family Is Now Staying
The other big summer openings were hotels, and both sit on Legendary Drive by Destin Commons. The Hilton Garden Inn Destin Commons at 3900 Legendary Drive held its grand opening in June and has a coastal-cuisine restaurant on site. Hyatt House Destin, a 146-room extended-stay hotel owned by Doradus Partners, was reported open by June 10. The Chamber marked its opening with a ribbon cutting on Aug. 20.
For a household hosting a long visit or a relative between moves, an extended-stay option near Destin Commons is useful. It also means more guests staying along the Parkway, the same road as Crispy Cones and Lucky Goat.
Still to Come on the Parkway
The Stillery, a Nashville-based restaurant and bar with live music and comfort food, plans to take over the former Hooters at 15015 Emerald Coast Parkway. In July, owner Steve Sargent said renovation would begin July 10 and that he hoped to open by late fall or the end of the year. No newer public update has appeared since that July report, so the timeline is still a target.
A Weekday Using Only the New Spots
- Morning. Coffee and a Blue Mountain Bakery pastry at Lucky Goat City Market, then Pilates next door or a pickup at Healthy Coast Meals.
- Midday. A jerk chicken or salmon bowl at LocOhana on Mountain Drive.
- Errands. The Walmart run on Emerald Coast Parkway, then Crispy Cones in the same strip.
- Guests in town. A walk through HarborWalk with a stop at The Florida Tasting Room and The Candy Bar, and a sand bucket of taffy for the beach.
Every stop on that list opened in 2026. All but the last are on roads Destin residents use every week.
If you know these Parkway addresses because of your own errands, you understand this part of Destin the way the Justin Myers Team does. When you're ready to talk about what's changing near your street, from new storefronts to where a move could make sense, we're glad to go over it with you. Find Your Emerald Coast Home.
