For seven years, if someone in Hollywood wanted a serious night out, the answer was usually the same: head to the Guitar Hotel, sit down at Cipresso, order the veal chop. That answer stopped working on July 19, when Cipresso closed for good after seven years of service at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood. What's replacing it is still, as of this writing, unnamed. And in the gap that's left behind, a different part of town has quietly been building its own case for where the best table in Hollywood actually is.
The Gap at the Guitar Hotel
Cipresso's closing wasn't a surprise exactly, but it wasn't small either. The Italian-American restaurant sat adjacent to the main entrance of the Guitar Hotel for seven years, and its exit clears the way for something bigger: an exclusive restaurant concept from Major Food Group, the New York hospitality company behind Carbone, Torrisi, and ZZ's Club. The partnership between Hard Rock and MFG isn't new. It traces back to a four-night Carbone residency at Cipresso in December 2023, timed to the launch of craps, roulette, and sports betting at Seminole Gaming properties across Florida. That residency turned into a broader 2024 deal covering Hard Rock properties in Tampa and Atlantic City, with concepts also in development for Athens and Barcelona.
What makes Hollywood's version notable right now is the wait. The official announcement, made August 5, confirmed the new restaurant is coming but withheld everything that would let a local actually plan around it. The name, the culinary direction, the design renderings, and the opening timeline are all being saved for a fall reveal. Hard Rock International Chairman Jim Allen called Major Food Group's ability to create restaurants that become "destinations in their own right" the reason for the pairing, and MFG co-founder Jeff Zalaznick framed it as a long-term bet.
"We look forward to building something very special together, a restaurant that's exciting, extraordinary, and gives guests yet another reason to love Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood for many years to come."
Until that reveal, the fan favorites from Cipresso haven't disappeared entirely. Nonna's Meatballs, the bolognese, and the bone-in veal chop alla parmigiana all moved over to Abiaka Wood Fire Grill starting July 27, and Abiaka expanded to seven days a week to handle the overflow. It's a placeholder, not a replacement, and everyone involved knows it.
Downtown Filled the Table While the Casino Waited
While the resort's marquee project sits in a holding pattern, downtown Hollywood has spent the same stretch of months building momentum without needing anyone's announcement.
Blu' Steakhouse opened at 1900 Harrison Street in the summer of 2025, and it's done something downtown hadn't quite managed before: made a case for fine dining a few blocks from Young Circle rather than inside a resort. Co-owner Sharon Leitner described the concept early on as glamorous, mixing modern design with art deco touches, and the restaurant has leaned into that with tableside preparations like a Bone Marrow Flambé from Chef Javi Cano and a rotation of USDA Prime dry-aged steaks alongside A5 Japanese Wagyu, a pairing that's genuinely uncommon in this part of Broward. One diner review put the shift plainly: downtown Hollywood wasn't known for truly fine dining, and Blu' is changing that.
Then there's Common Room, which is opening this summer at 2032 Harrison Street, close enough to Young Circle to count as part of the same cluster. It comes from BOL Hospitality Group, the team behind Bae Korean Grill and Social Room in Hollywood, founded in 2013 by Eric Douglas and Hai Nguyen. Douglas has described Common Room as an intimate neighborhood restaurant built for the long stretch of an evening rather than a single occasion.
"It's where happy hour effortlessly rolls into great evenings, and great dinners turn into memorable nights."
The restaurant also hides something behind it. The Brooklyn Room is a speakeasy accessible only through the alley at the back of Common Room, invitation-only, and named as a nod to New York's borough with cocktails tied to specific Brooklyn neighborhoods. It's the kind of detail that turns a restaurant opening into something people talk about at the bar next door.
None of this happened in isolation. Just across the street, Block 40 Food Hall has already established itself as a gathering point directly across from Young Circle, housing close to a dozen food and beverage concepts along with a brew bar under one roof, with patio seating that faces the park itself. It's been there long enough that it's stopped being new and started being infrastructure, the kind of place people default to without thinking twice.
Here's the wrinkle that complicates any simple story about downtown versus the resort: BOL Hospitality Group, the same company opening Common Room near Young Circle, also runs the Davidoff of Geneva Cigar Lounge inside Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood itself. The lines between downtown's dining scene and the resort's aren't as clean as a map would suggest. But the concentration of decisions, from a new restaurant to a speakeasy to a food hall that never went away, has landed downtown this year, while the resort's single biggest project has landed nowhere yet.
Where the Nights Are Actually Landing
If someone asked where to eat in Hollywood tonight, the honest answer right now isn't the casino. It's the stretch of downtown built around Young Circle, where the choices are already made and the doors are already open.
- Blu' Steakhouse, 1900 Harrison Street, for a full steakhouse night with tableside preparations
- Common Room, 2032 Harrison Street, for a neighborhood dinner that can slide into a late one, with The Brooklyn Room waiting for anyone who gets invited back
- Block 40 Food Hall, across from Young Circle, for a night with more variety and less commitment
- Abiaka Wood Fire Grill at Seminole Hard Rock, now open seven days a week, for anyone who still wants a taste of what Cipresso used to be
The resort will get its marquee restaurant this fall, and given Major Food Group's track record, it will likely be worth the wait. But the interesting part of this year in Hollywood isn't the restaurant that's coming. It's the fact that downtown didn't pause to see what it would be. Young Circle kept moving on its own schedule, and by the time the casino's new concept finally gets a name, the neighborhood around it will already have decided where it wants to eat.
If you're already part of this neighborhood, none of this needs an agent. But if you know someone weighing a move to a part of Broward where the dinner options keep getting better without waiting for permission, Gina Villanell has spent more than two decades paying attention to exactly this kind of shift. Let's Connect.
