Edison: Food + Drink Lab, the South Tampa restaurant that chef Jeannie Pierola opened at 912 W. Kennedy Blvd. in August 2012, has permanently closed. Pierola — a five-time James Beard Award semifinalist — has sold the business, converting a June closure that was announced as a summer break into a final one.
The summer framing left room for interpretation. Pierola had described the shutdown as a pause — time to step back, refresh the concept — and the restaurant's 14-year run on Kennedy made a return plausible. The sale removes that possibility.
Pierola built her professional record at Bern's and SideBern's before opening Edison as an independent concept. The restaurant positioned itself around a more experimental, contemporary approach to cooking at a point when that register had limited local representation in Tampa Bay. That positioning held. Edison appeared on the Tampa Bay Times' Top Restaurants lists for years — a sustained standing that most independent concepts don't reach and fewer maintain.
Five James Beard Award semifinalist recognitions mark Pierola as one of the more decorated operators to have run a restaurant in Tampa Bay. Edison was the vehicle for that recognition, and its closure ends a 14-year chapter on Kennedy that carried real weight in the city's independent dining landscape.
What occupies 912 W. Kennedy next has not been announced. The buyer of the business has not been identified publicly. Whether the address returns to restaurant use remains open.
