SEMINOLE — Shake Shack, the New York-based burger chain known for its crinkle-cut fries and frozen custard, appears to be coming to Seminole City Center.
The city issued a building permit June 15 for interior demolition and alteration work at 11165 Park Blvd., the multitenant building on the center’s Park Boulevard frontage that also houses CAVA and a Verizon store. The permit description names Shake Shack.
Community Development Director Wesley Wright confirmed the project in an email.
“The city has been working with the applicant on the proposed Shake Shack project since early June 2026,” Wright wrote.
The restaurant would occupy the space formerly held by Pieology Pizzeria, Wright said. Plans also call for moving the interior wall next to Verizon to give Shake Shack additional room. Verizon is staying, he said. The demolition and interior alteration work fall under the same permit, which has been issued.
Wright said the city does not have a record of the exact date Pieology closed.
The pizza chain’s departure follows a difficult stretch for the brand nationally. Pieology’s parent company, Little Brown Box Pizza LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2025. The chain had grown to roughly 200 locations by 2020 but was down to 45 at the time of the filing, not counting 17 restaurants it closed in the months beforehand.
A Seminole location would be Shake Shack’s first in Pinellas County. The chain’s nearest restaurants are in Midtown Tampa, at International Plaza and in Wesley Chapel, which opened the Tampa Bay area’s first Shake Shack drive-thru in 2024.
Shake Shack began as a hot dog cart in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park in 2004 and has since grown to more than 350 U.S. locations and more than 100 abroad.
No opening date has been announced.
The permit is the latest sign of turnover at the 37-acre center, the former Seminole Mall, which North American Development Group and Primerica Group One redeveloped into a 424,000-square-foot open-air shopping center beginning in 2016. Sugar Wing, which opened in April 2024 as the New York chicken chain’s first Florida restaurant, has closed. Beach Pizza has opened a location on 113th Street North. Pepe’s Cantina, a Mexican restaurant announced in April for the former Maple Street Biscuit Company space at 7756 113th St. N, has submitted a building permit application that remains under review, Wright said.
Asked how the city views the churn, Wright said the center has continued to fill space as it comes open.
“We have not observed any indication that vacant spaces are remaining unleased for extended periods,” he wrote.