Harbor Beach's Dining Room Moved to SE 17th Street This Fall

"Since the hotel opened last December, we have envisioned Omni Fort Lauderdale as a place that would become part of the fabric of this community," Omni Fort Lauderdale general manager Gayla Guyse said in the October 1, 2026 announcement of Barchetta.

For anyone living in Harbor Beach, that sentence describes something nearby. Two large waterfront resorts now sit on SE 17th Street at the neighborhood's southern edge, and between them they run nearly twenty named restaurants, bars and lounges. A dinner reservation used to mean driving up to Las Olas. Now it can mean a short trip along the causeway road. Not every one of those doors opens for a local, though, and the next three weeks bring a detour and a boat show that both land on the same street.

Ten months, two resorts

The district came together quickly. Here is the sequence, using the dates the venues and local press have published.

The Omni is an 801-room hotel connected to the Broward County Convention Center, and the County owns it. That ownership helps explain the community language in its announcements. Barchetta's launch release describes the restaurant as a reason for "our local community, convention attendees and visitors" to experience the waterfront, and puts the opening at roughly 52 jobs.

Which doors open, and for whom

Both resorts mix public venues with spaces reserved for hotel guests or members. That mix is what decides whether a Tuesday-night plan works.

At the Omni, the opening lineup was Reef 76 Kitchen & Bar, Fair Ketch, Ibis Sky Lounge, Hidden Key, Tide Coastal Kitchen and Leeward Market. Reef 76 is the signature restaurant. Fair Ketch has a Topgolf Swing Suite, Hidden Key is the lobby bar, Ibis is an adults-only rooftop lounge, and Leeward Market is a café and market. Tide is the poolside spot, and the hotel describes it as a retreat for in-house guests. The 10th-floor pool is a guest amenity too.

Pier Sixty-Six's own site says several of its restaurants and lounges "welcome both resort guests and visitors," and that poolside venues plus two private club restaurants and bars are reserved for eligible guests or members. The resort's FAQ gives hours for several of the outlets:

The pools are open to locals another way. Pier Sixty-Six's FAQ says non-resort guests can buy day use of the Resort Pool and Adult Pool through ResortPass.

Pier Top is the landmark. It's a revolving lounge on the tower's 17th floor that serves champagne, caviar and cocktails and still makes a full rotation every 66 minutes. Its own site encourages reservations, allows walk-ins and requires guests to be 21 or older.

Barchetta, the newest table

Barchetta is the one opening that has changed the corridor this month. Omni's release calls it a coastal Italian chophouse overlooking the Intracoastal, run by Executive Chef David Caceres. The menu is built on handmade pastas, seafood and prime steaks. The dishes the hotel highlights:

• Bistecca Fiorentina, a prime T-bone for two
• Frutti di Mare, mixed seafood with Florida black grouper and Kaluga caviar
• Bucatini Cacio e Pepe, handmade and finished with black truffle
• Pomodoro Negroni, made with tomato-basil-washed gin, Campari and sweet vermouth

Miami New Times described a dining room with marble, a wine wall and a vintage red motorcycle hung above the bar. The name means "little boat" in Italian.

The schedule matters for planning. Barchetta serves dinner Tuesday through Sunday from 5 to 11 p.m., until midnight on Friday and Saturday. The kitchen closes at 10 p.m. every night, and reservations go through OpenTable. The hotel's own dining pages were still listing Barchetta as "Opening Fall 2026" at the time of our research, so the release is the more reliable source. One small address wrinkle: an August Sun Sentinel roundup gave 1850 SE 17th St., the hotel's address, while Omni uses 1880 SE 17th St. for the restaurant on the plaza.

Two pieces still to come

The district isn't finished, and two of its most locally relevant pieces are still pending.

The first is the waterfront plaza Barchetta sits on. Broward County's convention center expansion page says the plaza will have public access and lists it for "opening 2026." None of the sources we reviewed confirm that the public plaza had opened as of October 12, 2026. Visit Lauderdale's media page, last updated in December 2025, also describes it as a future opening. A County-owned public waterfront space on the Intracoastal would be the corridor's first stop that doesn't depend on a reservation or a hotel key.

The second is Pelican Landing at Pier Sixty-Six. The resort's FAQ says it will return in "late 2026," and What Now South Florida reported in June that no exact opening date had been announced.

The casual end of the street

Not every evening calls for a T-bone for two. CAVA's arrival at 1344 SE 17th St. in South Harbor Plaza gives the corridor a quick counter-service option a little west of the resorts. The Sun Sentinel reported Community Day seatings on August 8 and 9 and a grand opening on August 10. Between Elate's 6 a.m. opening at Pier Sixty-Six and Barchetta's midnight close on weekends, SE 17th Street now has something serving from breakfast through late dinner.

The dates that change the street this fall

The timing matters because SE 17th Street is about to get busier for reasons that have nothing to do with dinner.

1. Now through October 25. Barchetta has been open since October 1, and the street has no announced construction impacts tied to the Harbordale project yet. These are the quieter weeknights to book.
2. Monday, October 26. Sewer work resumes in Harbordale on SE 10th Avenue between SE 15th Street and SE 18th Court, with completion expected in January 2027. The City of Fort Lauderdale's October 8 update lists detours along Miami Road, SE 15th Street, Cordova Road and SE 17th Street. The City notes that final restoration may run past January because the work is part of a larger project.
3. October 28 to November 1. The 2026 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show runs across several sites, including Pier Sixty-Six and the Broward County Convention Center, which means both SE 17th Street resorts. Organizers list attendance at more than 100,000. We covered how the same week plays out farther north in Bay Colony.
4. Saturday, December 12. The 55th annual Winterfest Boat Parade starts downtown at 6 p.m. and travels the New River and then north on the Intracoastal to Lake Santa Barbara.

For comparison with downtown, our map of the Las Olas fall 2026 dining wave follows the boulevard's eastward fill-in. On SE 17th Street the activity is more concentrated, with two resort campuses at 1850 and 2301 and a County plaza still waiting to open. For the private side of the neighborhood, see our Harbor Beach club, marina and private beach guide.

If you're weighing how the corridor's new hospitality anchors might affect a Harbor Beach home you own or are considering, Elite Florida Homes would be glad to talk it through over a private consultation.