Your Complete Guide to
Living in Bonita Springs

Sugarshack Downtown anchors the corridor with live music nearly every night, and Rooftop at Riverside adds open-air dining a block away. On the waterfront, Bonita Fish Company opened in fall 2025 in the longtime Bonita Bill's location, bringing an expanded bar and a fresh menu from the team behind Doc Ford's. Downtown Coffee & Wine Co., the farmers market, the historic artist cottages, Wonder Gardens, and Arts Bonita round out a district you can genuinely spend a whole day in.

Riverside Park — home of the bandshell, festivals, and Star Spangled Bonita — began a full renovation in April 2026, expected to finish by winter 2026. The redesign brings a durable artificial-turf event lawn, wider walkways for festival crowds and vendors, additional parking, bike racks, and better pedestrian connections — while preserving the live oaks, memorial trees, and public art that give the park its character. When it reopens, downtown's living room will be built for the crowds it now draws.

Project Telephone is under construction at Old 41 and Hampton Street — two indoor-outdoor restaurant spaces, one built around the old telephone building that gives the project its name. HoneyHole Downtown, a live-music restaurant from the Sugarshack team, is expected in early 2027. Imperial Crossing, a Barron Collier project on the north side of the Imperial River, is planned to bring shops, restaurants, and homes, and the mixed-use Imperial 41 riverfront project envisions residences, retail, kayak launches, and river access. Even bigger picture: the proposed 11-plus-mile Bonita Estero Rail Trail could one day let residents bike from surrounding neighborhoods straight into the district.