To see our favorite restaurants close down due to Covid-19 broke all of our hearts. Cravings definitely hit differently during this time because of social distancing and the myriad ways of buying food. All that was true when South Tampa staple Noble Rice temporarily closed back in March. Owners Eric and Adriana Fralick are currently planning on remodeling and revamping the restaurant in a new location while moving their new concept Koya, Tampa Bay’s first omakase-only restaurant, in to take over the old space.

Koya is anticipated to open later this month while Noble Rice is still TBD. Still having Japanese cravings? Their grocery store Noble Market is open with amended hours. Take a peek at what’s to come:

“We all know the feeling of wanting food from a favorite restaurant but realizing it’s closed because of the pandemic. Noble Rice co-owners Eric and Adriana Fralick say a lot of their loyal customers were still trying to make reservations while the restaurant was closed.

“We still had people leaving messages everyday asking why we weren’t open,” says Eric.

According to the Fralicks, the pandemic hit during Noble Rice’s best year. The “modern Japanese” restaurant closed mid-March to comply with the state quarantine. Eric says it tried takeout for about two weeks before officially shutting down because it wasn’t able to receive new shipments of food from overseas. To help out its employees a bit prior to closing, all takeout orders included a small service charge for tips. 

“We got stuck with not being able to get any deliveries or doing takeout,” Eric says. “We couldn’t get the fish in.”

Noble Rice took it day-by-day initially to see how serious COVID-19 got.

“As far as the restaurant is concerned, the unknown is scary since we didn’t know what to expect. It was definitely a stressful situation,” Adriana explains. So she and Eric are using this time to remodel Noble Rice, something they’ve had on their to-do list for two years.”

Learn more about Noble Rice and Koya here. Make reservations for Koya here when it opens later this month.

PHOTO C/O NOBLE RICE