The Empty Lots Across From Edison Mall Are Turning Into a Coffee Row

If you drove Cleveland Avenue between downtown Fort Myers and Edison Mall a couple of years ago, three spots on that stretch weren't open for business. One was a used car lot that had been abandoned for a long time. One was a gas station that had been abandoned for a long time too. The third was the old BurgerQue drive-thru barbecue site, and its building has since been torn down.

All three are now coffee shops, or will be soon. Gulfshore Business counted three new coffee concepts within three-quarters of a mile of U.S. 41 near the mall, and the people opening them have started calling it coffee row. The shops don't look much alike. One is a sit-down café that opened at the edge of downtown, with an ice cream counter. One is a prefab drive-thru stand that can be up and running in a few days. The third is a family-run local brand that already has two other locations in Lee County. Each one picked its site for a specific kind of customer passing by, so the stretch will work differently depending on which way you're driving and how much time you have.

Foxtail Picked the Side of the Road Headed Downtown

The first one open is Foxtail Coffee, at 3605 Cleveland Ave., Suite 130. It's in the commercial space facing the street at Latimer Crossing. Franchise owner Diana Willis cut the ribbon on Aug. 27. The shop is 1,745 square feet, built on the old used car lot that the Fort Myers Housing Authority redeveloped. According to Southwest Florida Business Today, Latimer Crossing is a 92-unit mixed-income community with homes and commercial space. Foxtail was its first official commercial tenant and fills one of three storefronts built for local businesses. The property is part of Phase I of the Greater Dunbar Initiative.

Willis chose this spot because of how traffic moves. She told Gulfshore Business before it opened, "I like where I'm at because I'm on the morning drive side for people going toward downtown." At the ribbon cutting, she told the same outlet the site sits on the northbound route off U.S. 41 and added, "We're just on the outskirts of downtown."

If you're heading into the city in the morning, this is the stop where you don't have to cross traffic to get in.

The details that set this location apart:

• Kelly's Homemade Ice Cream has its own counter inside, with dairy and non-dairy options. Kelly Seidl started the business in her kitchen, ran it from a food truck in 2013, and opened her first storefront in 2015. Kelly's and Foxtail are owned separately and work together under a strategic partnership.
• Orlando-roasted coffee. Foxtail started in Winter Park in 2016 and roasts all its coffee in Orlando.
• Local owners. Scott and Diana Willis also run the Foxtail shops in North Naples, Estero and Cape Coral. They've operated Jason's Deli franchises in Southwest Florida for more than 20 years.
• Hours on both ends of the day. The location page lists 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

The evening hours plus the ice cream counter make it an after-dinner stop as well as a morning one. That's a different role from the drive-thru going up farther south.

7 Brew Is Built for People Who Never Leave the Car

Head 0.7 miles south and you'll reach 4102 Cleveland Ave., across the street from Edison Mall. A gas station there sat abandoned for years. Crews tore it down in early June after the city issued demolition and building permits in April. Sana Abuoqab's company, S&O Ranch LLC, has owned the land since 2022. She told Gulfshore Business that barbers and restaurants had shown interest, "But we wanted somebody who would be there long term and that would boost the whole area."

That tenant is 7 Brew Drive Thru Coffee. After the chain cut the ribbon on its College Parkway stand Sept. 29, director of store openings Madden Montgomery told Gulfshore Business that the Edison Mall location is scheduled to open Nov. 30. That's about a month after this post goes up.

The building explains why a November date is believable for a lot that was a gas station in May. Each 7 Brew stand is 510 square feet and arrives prefabricated in two pieces, the ground floor and a rooftop section the company calls the "muffin top," which it uses for storage. According to the company, a stand can go from an empty concrete pad to serving drinks in 48 to 72 hours. Each location costs about $2 million to build and open.

The menu offers up to 20,000 drink combinations built from seven signature flavors, including the Blondie, a caramel and vanilla breve, and Sweet & Salty, a salted caramel and white chocolate breve. It also has energy drinks, teas, chai, matcha, smoothies, shakes, lemonades and 7 Fizz sodas.

The College Parkway stand gives a preview of how the Cleveland Avenue one will run. It's open 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Some of the roughly 90 people hired there are expected to move to the new stand once it opens. Before it opened, the College Parkway stand held a "Caffeine for a Cause" weekend and presented a $6,662 check to Valerie's House at the ribbon cutting. Fort Myers residents may see something similar near the mall before Nov. 30, but nothing has been announced yet.

A 5:30 a.m. opening is an hour ahead of Foxtail. The location also faces the mall rather than downtown. Those two choices point it at a different driver than Foxtail is chasing.

Urban Buzz Is the Local Family Still Waiting on a Wall

The third shop is the one with the deepest local roots. Urban Buzz Coffee Co. is run by the Eble family. Adam Eble manages the Cape Coral shop at 4413 Del Prado Blvd., which opened in April 2020. His brother Alex runs the University Village location near Florida Gulf Coast University at 19810 Village Center Drive, which opened in January 2024. Their parents, Sharon and Jeff Eble, work behind the scenes as chief financial officer and franchise developer.

The Urban Buzz website lists the Fort Myers shop at 3852 Cleveland Ave. and still marks it "Coming Soon," with no opening date. That address puts it between Foxtail and 7 Brew, about eight parcels north of the 7 Brew site. Adam Eble told Gulfshore Business that construction slowed because the city required a retaining wall on the site.

The Eble family isn't worried about having neighbors. "It's going to be crazy," Adam Eble told Gulfshore Business about the coming coffee row. "We want some competition. We want to be better every single day. We're excited. We can't wait for it to be open." Willis told the same outlet she felt the same way about the competition: "Let's do it. I think that's great."

If you've been to the Cape Coral or University Village shop, the Cleveland Avenue location will be the third Urban Buzz in Lee County, run by the same family. Until the sign changes, the Del Prado and Village Center Drive shops are the places to try it.

How the Stretch Lines Up for Your Morning

Here's where each shop stands as of late October 2026, listed north to south from downtown toward the mall.

If 7 Brew opens on schedule, two of the three lots will be serving coffee by the end of November.

At the Westerfield Group, we keep up with changes along roads like Cleveland Avenue because they're part of what daily life looks like here. If you'd like to talk about what's opening on the routes you drive every day, or how this part of Fort Myers fits the way you live, let's connect.