Downtown Bellevue's Small Restaurant Spaces Turn Over in Weeks. The Big Rooms Wait Much Longer.

How long does a downtown Bellevue restaurant space stay empty between tenants? This fall, the answer depended on the size of the room and who already held the keys.

At the base of Ten20 Tower, Tem Sib served its last meal on Aug. 31, and by late October the same room had reopened as SUDA. A few blocks north, the two-story restaurant space at Bellevue Towers has been empty since July 2025. Upstairs at Lincoln Square North, the room Din Tai Fung left in 2024 is still empty, with the same operator now on its second plan for the space after first targeting December 2024. If you're deciding where to eat in November, the places you can walk into are mostly small counters and rooms run by people who were already there.

At Ten20 Tower, the same team kept the room

Tem Sib Eatery & Bar closed on Aug. 31, and the team told customers the closing was "not goodbye" but "the beginning of something new," according to Downtown Bellevue Network. The new restaurant, SUDA, sits at 1020 108th Ave. NE, Suite 100. The team described it as Thai cooking built on the flavors and traditions its members grew up with, with room to experiment using Pacific Northwest ingredients. By Oct. 27, Visit Bellevue listed SUDA Thai Rooted among the city's recent openings.

The room has history. Tem Sib opened there in December 2018, and its owners later opened Fern on Main Street in Old Bellevue in 2019. When an operator renovates its own space instead of handing it to a new tenant, the gap stays short. That explains why SUDA was serving within roughly two months.

Counters and storefronts filled next

The other fall openings follow a similar pattern. They are compact spaces, and they reopened soon after the previous business left.

• MEAN Sandwich, Lincoln South Food Hall. Great State Burger and King Leroy shared one space on the second floor of Lincoln Square South, 500 Bellevue Way NE, and both closed this fall. MEAN Sandwich, a Seattle sandwich shop, moved in. Visit Bellevue counted it as a recent opening by Oct. 27. The menu covers sandwiches, burgers, fried chicken, falafel and subs, and MEAN's site lists daily hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• CILO Lab, Bellevue Connection. This gelato and tea shop took over 550 106th Ave. NE, Suite 150, which Don't Yell at Me had held. Any drink on the menu can be made into a float with a scoop of gelato.
• Makkee Dessert, Surrey on Main. The Chinese dessert chain opened its first Washington location at 10797 Main St., in the storefront Sugar n Flakes Bakery & Cafe had occupied. It serves dessert soups and traditional sweets made with jellies, beans and fruit in milk.

Lincoln South Food Hall turns over often. It reopened in June 2023 after a refresh and a change of ownership to Kemper Development Company. Burbs Burgers held the space now occupied by MEAN before Great State Burger and King Leroy moved in during August 2024. Dote Coffee Bar, next door, has been there since the food hall first opened in 2018, and OAKBERRY, an acai bowl shop and the brand's first in Washington, arrived in July 2026. That turnover keeps food hall counters filled with new tenants. The larger rooms nearby move much more slowly.

Where the big rooms stand

Bellevue Towers has had a hard few years

Lot No. 3, a two-story pub, opened at the base of Bellevue Towers in May 2010 and operated for a decade before closing in August 2020. SuperKim Crab House opened there in December 2024 and closed in May 2025. A representative told Downtown Bellevue Network that the all-electric kitchen made the seafood menu hard to prepare consistently. The same owner reopened the room as SuperKim Khao Man Gai on May 28, 2025, then closed it on July 27, 2025, and moved to Pioneer Square.

The next tenant has a lighter menu. K-Cafe Dabang plans to serve coffee and matcha during the day and turn into a more relaxed lounge later on. It will be the only K-Cafe Dabang location that serves alcohol. The drink menu leans on cream coffees such as the Einspänner, and the desserts include bingsu and croffles. Part of the space will be available to rent by the hour for gatherings. The brand's other location is in Lynnwood, and it is a sister business to Wild Wasabi. The café was planned for November 2026, so check kcafedabang.com before you go.

Lincoln Square North is on its second Wagyu House plan

Din Tai Fung opened its second-floor Lincoln Square restaurant in November 2010. The space covered about 7,000 square feet and seated 220. On April 16, 2024, the restaurant moved to a new 17,000-square-foot space on the ground floor at 10455 NE 8th St., where Maggiano's Little Italy had been.

Chubby Group, the company behind Chubby Cattle, The X Pot and Niku X, applied to the City of Bellevue in April 2024 for a wagyu hot pot and barbecue restaurant in the old second-floor space, with a December 2024 target. The current plan is Wagyu House, an all-you-can-eat yakiniku restaurant where diners grill beef ranging from American and Australian Wagyu to Japanese A5 at the table. The target is the end of 2026, near Lucky Strike. Visit Bellevue says the timeline could slip into early 2027. If that holds, a room built for 220 diners will have been between tenants for close to three years.

New buildings set their own pace

New construction changes the math, because a dining room has to be built before it can open. The Eight, Skanska's 25-story office tower at 10770 NE 8th St., was completed in 2025. One of its food tenants is already open. Sabine Cafe serves breakfast, lunch, weekend brunch, coffee and cocktails with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences, plus a weekday Golden Hour. Sabine's site lists hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends.

On Oct. 27, Skanska announced that Sea Creatures, the restaurant group run by James Beard Award-winning chef Renee Erickson and her partners, had signed a lease at The Eight. The deal fills the last of the tower's ground-floor retail space. It will be the group's first restaurant on the Eastside. Its Seattle restaurants include The Walrus and the Carpenter, Westward, Deep Dive, Willmott's Ghost, Lioness and General Porpoise. "The Eight gives us a wonderful setting to create something new," Erickson told Downtown Bellevue Network. The restaurant will face the tower's landscaped plaza on NE 8th Street, near a lobby "Living Room" that is open to the public.

Several other projects follow the same build-first pattern:

1. Willie Burton's, 600 116th Ave. NE in Wilburton. This food hall near the Eastrail is planned with Lil Woody's burgers and shakes, a full-service bar, two casual concepts from chef Brady Ishiwata Williams, a patio, a beer garden and a play area. It was first announced for summer 2026, and Visit Bellevue still listed it as not yet open in late October.
2. Sushi Tei, 525 Bellevue Square. The Singapore-based Japanese restaurant plans its first U.S. location here, and The Bellevue Collection lists it as "coming soon."
3. Sunwell, ground floor of GIS Plaza at 999 110th Ave. NE, across from the Bellevue Library. It will serve smoothies, matcha, coffee and pastries, including a marionberry jam biscuit. Its website currently reads "Coming Soon to Downtown Bellevue!"
4. Nobu, Avenue Bellevue at 10300 NE 8th St. An approximately 10,000-square-foot Japanese-Peruvian restaurant is planned for 2027.

Where you can eat this month

Here's what's serving downtown this November, from morning to night:

• Morning: Sabine Cafe at The Eight opens at 8 a.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. on weekends.
• Lunch: MEAN Sandwich, on the second floor of Lincoln Square South, is open daily from 11 a.m. Dote Coffee Bar and OAKBERRY are next door.
• Dinner: SUDA, at the base of Ten20 Tower on 108th Avenue NE.
• Dessert: Makkee on Main Street, or CILO Lab's gelato floats at Bellevue Connection.

Visit Bellevue reminds diners that opening plans can change and suggests checking with each business before making plans. That advice matters most for the bigger rooms and new buildings on this list.

The same pattern shows up in commercial real estate. Small spaces with working kitchens re-let quickly, while large, specialized rooms can sit empty through more than one plan for the space. If you own on the Eastside or are weighing a property with retail space on the ground floor, Tarek Moghrabi Realty Group can tell you what we're seeing in downtown Bellevue's leasing and what it means for your timeline. Let's find a time to chat.