Lakeland Film Lab opens its second location Saturday, Oct. 10, at 2821 Central Ave in St. Petersburg's Grand Central District, occupying 1,300 square feet between Cheeky's Fish & Raw Bar and Nightwatch. Operators Nick and Elizabeth Buttrey — who launched the Lakeland original in spring 2025 — are using the St. Pete address to introduce two services their first shop never carried: a public community darkroom and a camera rental program.
The 2821 Central location runs in-house film developing and scanning, the same core services as the Lakeland shop, and layers on darkroom access, rentals, and a program of introductory film photography and darkroom classes. That combination makes this the more fully equipped of the two locations. The class offering positions the space as a production and instruction facility rather than a drop-off lab alone — a model designed for first-time film shooters as much as working photographers who already know their way around a developer tray.
Opening day runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Oct. 10 and includes a show of photography submitted by Floridians, giving the darkroom's community pitch a concrete visual statement at launch rather than simply promising access to equipment. The first 25 through the door receive a giveaway. Grind, a coffee pop-up, makes its own debut inside the lab the same morning; the source did not identify Grind's operator or specify residency terms beyond the opening event.
