What's New in Downtown Columbia Dining This Fall

Walk down Broadway from Eighth Street to Tenth and you'll pass three addresses that held one restaurant last spring and a different one now, or soon will. Sycamore's old corner is under renovation. The A Little More Poke space has a new menu. A few blocks away on Ninth, Bud's Classic BBQ's former building now has disco balls.

Downtown Columbia's fall dining news is mostly about turnover. The biggest new openings in The District moved into rooms that already had kitchens. Two of the newcomers are clearly built to stay busy well past the usual dinner hour. Meanwhile, the brand-new buildings are going up along the parkways and the interstate, away from downtown.

Familiar storefronts, new names

Here's who moved where, as of late October 2026.

Inside Columbia described the summer stretch as several weeks of new signs going up across The District, each announcing a future opening. By October, most of those signs had turned into open doors.

Sava and Pablo are built for late nights

The two biggest openings downtown this fall have something in common. Both plan for customers long after the dinner rush.

Sava held its soft opening on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 1010 E. Broadway, Suite 102. The menu is fast, fresh Mediterranean food, with an Istanbul bowl, a chicken shawarma bowl, a falafel wrap, and chicken, beef and salmon plates for dine-in, takeout or delivery. The hours tell the story. According to the Columbia Missourian, Sava closes at 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and stays open until 1:30 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. That's three and a half extra hours on the nights downtown is busiest. General manager Wally Harris told the Missourian, "We are very big on customer service. We are here to serve, and we are here to accommodate everybody."

Pablo goes further and turns into a nightclub as the evening goes on. The Mexico City-inspired spot at 304 S. Ninth St. serves wood-fired tacos, fajitas and drinks. Co-owner Jason Paetzold described the idea to the Columbia Missourian by pointing to restaurants he'd visited while traveling, where "once the meal was going on, the DJ would take the stage, the lights would start to spin and it was just a vibe and it was so much fun." In the same report, he named college students as the target crowd.

Things To Do in Columbia listed Pablo as open on Oct. 19. Its reported hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 3 p.m. to 1 a.m., and the nightclub portion starts at 9 p.m. for guests 21 and older. If you want tacos without the DJ, an early-evening visit is the safer plan. Hours at new restaurants tend to shift in the first few months, so check before you go.

The owners behind Pablo aren't new to town. Jason Paetzold, his son Joey Paetzold and Jim Yankee also own Bud's Classic BBQ and JoJo's Biscuit Company in the Broadway Bluffs development.

Why Bud's left and Murry's is coming in

The two moves at the center of this fall's reshuffle run in opposite directions, and the reasons are practical.

Bud's Classic BBQ gave up its Ninth Street building because it needed more parking. The Missourian reported that the owners are building a new Bud's on the south side of Columbia with a bigger lot, estimated to open about a year after that report. A barbecue place that depends on drivers moved toward space. A late-night concept that depends on foot traffic took its downtown spot.

Murry's is heading the other way. Sycamore's last day at 800 E. Broadway was May 29, as the Columbia Daily Tribune reported in May. The owners said a longtime employee hoped to reopen Sycamore at another location. ABC17 reported at the same time that a downtown Murry's would take over the space, with the opening expected "in the fall." According to the Columbia Missourian, this will be a second Murry's with the same menu, hours and concept, not a new restaurant under a new name.

As of Inside Columbia's latest update, renovation had started at the corner of Broadway and Eighth, but no official opening date had been confirmed. With October nearly over, "fall" is running short. For now, plan on Murry's opening when the doors actually open, not on any particular weekend.

Murry's owner, Sarah Lark, is closely tied to downtown. COMO Magazine noted in October that she serves on the board of The Missouri Symphony and was one of the guest bartenders at the league's Sips for the Symphony fundraiser at Orr Street Studios on Oct. 15.

The small storefronts on Broadway's 900 block

Not everything downtown is a full dinner restaurant. At 914 E. Broadway, Clementine's Ice Cream serves Missouri-made, all-natural ice cream. Its menu includes alcohol-infused pints and options for guests who avoid dairy or gluten. It became part of the downtown routine quickly. Clementine's was one of the stops on The District's seventh annual Caffeine Crawl on Oct. 17, alongside longtime names like Shortwave Coffee, Fretboard Coffee and Wilder Coffeehouse at The Tiger Hotel.

Next door, Ramyun & Delights is moving in with Korean-style ramyun and sweet desserts. No opening date has been announced.

Together with Sava at 1010 E. Broadway, that puts three new or coming food spots within roughly a block of each other on Broadway, all in existing storefronts.

Out at the edges, the new buildings

Look away from downtown and the pattern flips. Many of the other openings and announced projects around Columbia are on sites near the interstate and the parkways, and several are chains:

• Fuji Japanese Steakhouse at 1000 I-70 Drive SW, which Inside Columbia covered as a new Japanese steakhouse. The menu covers sushi, nigiri, ramen, bento boxes, stir-fry and hibachi.
• Marco's Pizza opened Aug. 31 at 911 Rainforest Parkway, with dough made fresh daily and vegetables cut in-house, under owner Klayton Anderson.
• The Big Biscuit, a breakfast-and-lunch spot, is planned for 503 E. Nifong Blvd. The franchisee, The Umstattd Group, targeted a December opening, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune in July.
• Culver's plans a third Columbia location at 1101 Pebbles Parkway near Grindstone Parkway, joining the ones on Bernadette Drive and Broadway Bluffs Drive. No opening date has been announced.
• Shibam Coffee Co., which serves Yemeni coffee, is coming to 1009 N. Providence Road. As of mid-October, it hadn't announced an opening date.

The new Bud's belongs on this side of the map too, since the owners moved it south to get a bigger parking lot.

Two updates worth knowing

A couple of familiar places have news this fall as well. Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, had announced plans to close but changed course. It now serves Sunday brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, a boudin breakfast bowl and bananas foster French toast, according to COMO Magazine.

In the same issue, COMO Magazine reported that Cafe Berlin took first place in August's Vegan Chef Challenge for the second year in a row. Gina's Vegan A Go Go came in second and Le Bao third, and more than 200 ballots were cast.

We follow openings like these because where people eat and spend their evenings is a big part of how a neighborhood feels day to day. If you're weighing how close to downtown's restaurants and late-night spots you want to live, or just want to swap a few dinner recommendations, The Conyers Team is happy to talk it through. Contact Us anytime.