Owner and chef Traci Bryant announced on the restaurant’s social media last week that its final day will be Sunday, May 25. The Nest, Caracara’s French offshoot in the same downtown Dunedin space at 730 Broadway, will also close.
Though she’d recently revamped Caracara’s menu, Bryant told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that business had been slow and the yearly Spring Training surge she depends on didn’t deliver the bump she needed this season.
“I’m not really somebody that waits for desperation to make decisions, and I felt like the writing was on the wall,” Bryant told CL. “I wanted people to be able to experience Caracara till the last drop but it not be a facade of what we were trying to offer.”
She’ll be moving Caracara’s staff and shifting her focus to her nearby pizzeria, Jack Pallino’s.
Bryant and her restaurant group Nina Hospitality (stylized “NINA”) started Caracara in 2019 as an Asian and Latin fusion small plates concept. She also opened Taco Baby at a former ATM stand at 235 Main St the same year. That tiny restaurant closed in early-2024.
Caracara was Best of the Bay’s Best Tapas/Small Plates winner in 2023. Bryant was awarded Best Chef in 2020.
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This article appears in May 15-21, 2025.