Daily Eats has officially reopened as Meeting House, now open for lunch dinner and weekend brunch at 901 S. Howard Ave. Ciccio Restaurant Group elected to close Daily Eats this summer after years of operating out of the location, with Meeting House as the next step in the evolution of the long-beloved space.
After plenty of buzz around the evolution of the longtime SoHo favorite, I was eager to get a first taste.
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As a South Tampa native who grew up with Daily Eats, I was especially curious to see what this next chapter would look like. This corner of Howard Avenue has been a neighborhood gathering place for 75 years, first as Old Meeting House and later as Daily Eats. Now, Meeting House is carrying that history forward with a completely new concept.
And after getting an early taste, my biggest takeaway is that this isn’t just Daily Eats with a new name. It’s something completely its own.
The team describes Meeting House as a passion project, inspired in part by the Hamptons and the classic American diner. They focus on familiar, nostalgic food made with intention. They also shared that dining habits have changed, with people moving away from breakfast, which helped inspire the evolution from Daily Eats into a concept showcasing lunch and dinner.
The result is a menu filled with high-quality comfort food you actually want to order: burgers, chicken tenders, sliders, tots, fries and, of course, milkshakes.
What really stood out to me, though, was how much thought is going into the ingredients. Meeting House has its own “house rules” centered around high-quality, feel-good ingredients, including grass-fed beef, hormone- and antibiotic-free chicken, wild-caught seafood and eggs from a local biocircular farm that can be as fresh as two days old.
They’re also doing a lot in-house. The ketchup is homemade, and they even ferment their hand-cut fries for three days. It’s the kind of behind-the-scenes detail you probably wouldn’t expect from a plate of classic diner food. I also really appreciated how many options there are for different dietary needs. There are plenty of gluten-free and vegetarian choices, so having dietary restrictions doesn’t mean missing out on the fun stuff. Even the milkshakes can be made with oat milk.
We tried a lot on our visit. My standouts were the gluten-free, free-range chicken tenders, the seriously good mac and cheese, the Sloppy Joe tater tots, and the tempura-battered green beans. We also tried the MH veggie burger, free-range fried chicken sliders, tater tots and Luigi’s Slaw.
I also need the Sea Salt Maple Shaken Espresso again. So good.
After dinner came dessert, and obviously, we had to try the milkshakes. We sampled Mitch’s Banana Pudding, Matcha, Hurley’s Salted Butterscotch and Bake’n Babes Cookie Crumble. They’re fun, nostalgic and exactly what you want from a modern diner.
With so much nostalgia tied to Daily Eats, I think one of the biggest questions around Meeting House has been whether it can become something new without losing what made people love this spot in the first place. After my first visit, I think it does. But while it maintains the Daily Eats vibes, I’d go in expecting a new restaurant, not simply a new version of Daily Eats.
For me, there’s something really cool about watching a place I grew up with evolve while this same corner of South Tampa continues doing what it has for generations: bringing people together over good food.
And if the mac and cheese and matcha milkshake are any indication, I’m very ready for this next chapter.
Follow The Meeting House on Instagram to get updates on what to expect at the new spot.
