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St. Petersburg, Florida has become quite the hot spot in Central Florida. It has been booming with trendy restaurants, bars, shops, museums, and now it has a newly renovated pier. We have been wanting to take some time to explore St. Petersburg and found the perfect opportunity with a girls weekend getaway.

As usual, we created an itinerary so that we could explore as much as we could and not waste any time missing out on the best things St. Pete had to offer.

Here is how we had a fun weekend in downtown St. Pete:

DAY 1

12 PM Check-in to hotel

I chose to stay at Hyatt Place St. Petersburg/Downtown on 2nd Street North because it was walking distance to just about all the places we had on the itinerary. Plus, I’ve stayed here before and knew that their rooms were clean and spacious.

Since there were four of us girls, we needed the two queen beds. And if we wanted to have an extra friend stay with us, the room had a sofa bed as well.

The normal check-in time is at 3 PM, but we were able to check-in early at 12 PM. If your room isn’t ready when you arrive at the hotel, the staff at the hotel are more than happy to hold your luggage for you while you get started venturing about.

1 PM St. Pete Pier

The St Pete Pier is only a half a mile from the Hyatt hotel, so we went to go check that out first. St Pete did a huge renovation on the original pier and has transformed it into a more modern, enjoyable place with lots of activities for all ages.

You’ll come across many areas where you can eat and lounge around with plenty of chairs, tables, and benches. There’s a playground, Discovery Center, fishing deck, a marketplace, picnic area, and even a little beach, so make sure you bring your swimming suit if you want to cool off in the water.

The entire walk from start to finish of the pier is about half a mile. If you don’t want to walk the entire pier, there’s a free shuttle service that goes up and down the pier. We did not ride the shuttle, but we did see it pass by us numerous times, so they run pretty often.

Along the walk, you’ll come across some art sculptures and one of my favorites is the Bending Arc by Janet Echelman. At night, this iconic piece of art is magical with lights illuminating the billowing net sculpture.

At the end of the pier is Pier Teaki, which is a gorgeous rooftop restaurant and bar with outstanding views of downtown St Pete. We were planning on eating lunch here, but their menu was very limited, so we decided to leave and try another place on the pier. But we didn’t leave without first taking some pictures, of course.

We ended up eating at Doc Ford’s, which is at the halfway point of the pier. They had a much better selection of food items to choose from. My margarita and chicken tenders were great, but the rest of the group felt like the food was just average.

5 PM Red Mesa Cantina

Red Mesa Cantina is one of my favorite restaurants in St Pete. They have a wonderful ambiance with delicious Mexican food and of course, excellent margaritas - my drink of choice.

On a normal day, I would have made a reservation at Red Mesa, but they weren’t taking any reservations on the day we went because it just happened to be Cinco de Mayo, one of their busiest days of the year.

The wait for a table was close to two hours, so we decided to walk around the restaurant instead and have a drink at one of their bars. Red Mesa has three floors and each floor has a bar. We ended up on the third floor and had a drink there to figure out where to eat dinner since Red Mesa was not happening.

I actually ran into my friends on the rooftop and they are locals of St Pete, so they gave us some excellent recommendations. Hawkers sounded like something we’d enjoy, so we grabbed an Uber and headed over there.

6:30 PM Hawkers Asian Street Food

Hawkers has a really cool vibe where you feel like you’re in the alley of somewhere in Asia. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait for a table and were seated outside.

The interesting thing about Hawkers is that Candy had an idea of what it would be like because when she lived in Singapore, they had Hawker centers there where the locals would go to eat great food at affordable prices. Hawker centers are a unique aspect of Singapore's culture and lifestyle.

The menu had a mix of many Asian cuisines including Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, and more. We were so hungry that we ended up ordering a little too much food (typical of me).

Everything was outstanding except for the beef dishes. The taste was bland and one of the grilled dishes was burnt. I would go back here again and just avoid the beef dishes.

If Mexican or Asian isn’t what you’re looking for, there are plenty of other restaurants in St. Pete you can dine at including Cassis, Bella Brava, and Social Roost, just to name a few.

9:00 PM Dirty Laundry

Originally, we had plans to go to Dirty Laundry after dinner, but Candy was not feeling well, so we decided not to go. But you should totally include this in your itinerary if you’re out and about in downtown St. Pete.

It’s one of the coolest speakeasy bars in Tampa Bay where you pick up the phone in a laundry room to enter the bar behind a laundry machine.

There are so many cute photo-ops here too. We will definitely have to come back here one day to experience it for ourselves.

8:30 PM The Saint Speakeasy

I also had another speakeasy in our plans, but again, since Candy was not feeling well, we opted not to go. I wanted us to experience this together, so it just didn’t feel right going without her.

Anyway, this is another cool speakeasy in St. Pete that my friends have been raving about. They say that this speakeasy is actually more fun than Dirty Laundry, so if you had to choose one, I’d probably go with this one.

The concept of The Saint is that you “confess life's darkest sins, enjoy fine cocktails and even finer company”. The “nuns” serve you drinks and the staff really go into character to stick to the theme.

I just love themed bars and restaurants, so this one would be a lot of fun.

10:00 PM Park & Rec DTSP

To end the night, we had some drinks at Park & Rec DTSP and danced the night away. Candy stayed back at the hotel since she still was not feeling well, but the rest of us girls still wanted to do something, so I felt like Park & Rec was the best option since it was right by our hotel.

We wanted to dance and/or play some games and Park & Rec is the perfect spot for this. I always found that this bar plays great music and we had a lot of fun taking over the dance floor.

If you’re not into dancing, they also have lots of games including billiards, Skee-Ball, Pop A Shot, air hockey, arcade games, giant bucket pong, and more.

Some other bars to check out in downtown St Pete are No Vacancy, Saigon Blonde, and Birchwood Canopy (which has amazing rooftop views of Tampa Bay).

DAY 2

9 AM Paradeco Coffee Roasters

St Pete is full of trendy coffee shops, but the one that always sticks out the most to me is Paradeco Coffee Roasters because of its colorful Instagram-worthy cafe. Even their coffee machine is beautiful.

They serve specialty coffees, teas, smoothies, and baked goods. I had one of their pastries and it was to die for.

There are numerous other local trendy coffee shops in the area, so if you’re a coffee lover, make sure to also stop by The Blend, Intermezzo Coffee, and Bandit Coffee.

10 AM Fairgrounds St Pete

Fairgrounds St Pete is an art and technology museum with over 60 local and international artists that were commissioned to make art for visitors to immerse themselves. We have become huge fans of digital art ever since we visited the teamLab museum in Japan and have been wanting to visit another one.

Initially, we had plans to visit this fun digital museum, but instead, Candy had to go to Urgent Care. Luckily, Signature Urgent Care was right by our hotel. She was seen immediately and thankfully it was nothing serious.

They were able to prescribe her some medicine and we picked it up at the CVS Pharmacy, which was also within walking distance. If you’re in need of an urgent care facility, we highly recommend Signature Urgent Care.

12 PM Check-out of hotel

Check-out time at Hyatt Place is 12pm, so we went ahead and did that before moving on to do the rest of the activities on our itinerary.

The staff at the reception desk were really nice and asked if we wanted to store our luggage with them while we did some more exploring, but we felt that leaving our luggage in the car (that was parked in the paid garage) was safe enough.

12:30 PM Brunch at The Library

The Library is one of my favorite brunch spots in St Pete because of its gorgeous decor. It has a similar vibe to Oxford Exchange in Tampa and I found out later that they are owned by the same people, so that made sense.

Originally, we had plans to have brunch at The Library, but we ate at Oak & Stone instead because it was right next to our hotel and we could eat here while we waited for Candy to be seen at the urgent care clinic.

2 PM 2D Cafe

I have been seeing 2D restaurants and cafes pop up all over the world and have always wanted to visit one. Now, St Pete has a little 2D Cafe too!

Apparently, Japan came up with the 2D cafe concept and now the US is starting to pop them up like crazy across the country. The cool thing about these cafes and restaurants is that each one you go to has a totally different design.

Not only can you take unique photos here, but their coffee and baked goods are delicious as well. We had a cruffin, which is a croissant muffin with custard in the middle. It was the most amazing dessert we’ve tasted in awhile.

3 PM Thrift Store Shopping

Right next to the 2D Cafe is Wendy’s Closet, where you will find mounds of vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories. There was so much to look at in here that we were a little overwhelmed, but there’s definitely some great items.

There are numerous consignment stores on Central Ave and we wanted to check out ARTpool Gallery, but they had a strict mask mandate rule and since none of us had masks, we went to another consignment store next door called (re)treat.

(re)treat was spacious with well-curated items. They have luxury clothing along with another section of home goods. Everything is presented nicely and the staff was friendly as well.

If you’re still in the mood for thrift shopping, there’s another consignment store on 4th Street called Detox. This was more my style of clothing and they had a great selection of designer clothes that were all neatly organized.

MORE TO EXPLORE

There’s so much more to explore in downtown St Pete that you can’t do it all in one weekend, but if you have some extra time, you can also check out the Saturday Morning Market, Chihuly Collection, and do a walking tour of St Pete’s street art.

If you want to explore beyond downtown St Pete, you can also check out the Dali Museum, Sunken Gardens, and of course, the beautiful beaches of St Pete. We love Postcard Inn but I also hear that it can get a little rowdy on weekends, so it’s best to go on weekdays if you’re more into the chill vibe.

WHERE TO STAY IN DOWNTOWN ST PETE

Hyatt Place St. Petersburg/Downtown - This is the hotel we stayed at and I particularly love this hotel because the rooms are so spacious. Our room came with two queen beds and a lounge area with a sofa couch.

Hampton Inn & Suites St. Petersburg/Downtown - This was my second choice as Hampton Inn also has spacious rooms.

The Vinoy - If you want to splurge, this historic hotel is beautiful and located right on the water.

The Birchwood - Cute boutique hotel located across from The Vinoy.

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