"It's pretty much all chain restaurants out here."
Eric Fralick said that about the corner of Gunn Highway and State Road 54, according to the Pasco County Community Website. He knows the area because he lives near it, and his new restaurant is going in there. Toro, a sushi and ramen restaurant from Eric and Adriana Fralick, is at 2290 Gunn Highway in the Shoppes at Starkey Crossing. The Fralicks also own Koya, which holds a Michelin star.
Toro's neighbors include Keke's Breakfast Cafe, Chick-fil-A, Dave's Hot Chicken, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Andy's Frozen Custard, Texas Roadhouse and Huey Magoo's Chicken Tenders. Most of those places do a lot of their business through quick pickup. Toro is set up for the same habit. It's a small, takeout-first counter from one of Tampa's most decorated restaurant teams, and its fish is bought at auction from Tokyo's Toyosu Market.
The restaurant group behind the Gunn Highway storefront
Few of Toro's neighbors know the Fralicks yet. In Tampa, their record looks like this:
| Restaurant | Opened | Format | Michelin standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noble Rice | 2016, in a small Hyde Park space; now at Water Street | Modern Japanese, izakaya | Michelin-recommended since 2023 |
| Koya | 2020, Hyde Park | Nine-seat tasting menu, one of the area's first omakase rooms | Michelin star since 2023, three straight years |
| Kinjo | 2025, Hyde Park | "Wafu" Italian, a Japanese-Italian hybrid | Michelin-recommended; chef Jada Vidal won the Michelin Young Chef award |
| Toro | Gunn Highway, Odessa | Casual sushi and ramen, takeout-first | Fralick says it won't chase a star |
The Tampa Bay Beacons reported that Koya was the first omakase restaurant in the area to win a Michelin star. The same report says Noble Rice helped bring a wave of modern, upscale Japanese cooking to Tampa Bay after it opened in Hyde Park. None of those restaurants are anywhere near Pasco County. Eating their food has meant driving to Hyde Park or Water Street.
Toro is the first one outside Tampa, and its format is the furthest from Koya's nine seats.
Why it's built around takeout
The idea for Toro came out of Koya's own numbers. The Pasco County Community Website reports that takeout became a significant part of Koya's business. Toro is designed around that demand from the start. In the Tampa Bay Beacons coverage, Fralick described the goal as "takeout done right."
The planning details all fit that design:
- Size: about 1,500 square feet of new construction.
- Staff: Fralick expects fewer than 10 employees.
- Buildout: permits filed for interior buildout and fire sprinkler work total nearly $210,000. Carpa Contracting is the general contractor and Mico Works is the architect.
- Approach: a scaled-down, casual concept with an educational side, meant to make sushi and ramen easier to try for people who might not usually order them.
A Hyde Park omakase room serves diners who already go looking for otoro. On Gunn Highway, plenty of customers are picking up chicken tenders or a bagel on the way home. Toro is built to bring some of them into sushi without a tasting-menu reservation.
What comes through the Toyosu pipeline
According to the Tampa Bay Beacons, Toro buys fish at auction from Tokyo's Toyosu Market, and its sushi and nigiri selection is similar to Noble Rice's. The fish named in that coverage:
- Otoro, the fatty belly of bluefin tuna. The restaurant takes its name from this cut.
- Uni, sea urchin
- Kanpachi, amberjack
- Shima aji, striped jack
- Madai, a Japanese sea bream
Ramen bowls and specialty maki rolls round out the menu. Fralick spent several years living and cooking in Japan before he and Adriana opened the first Noble Rice. Toro brings that background to a takeout bag on SR 54.
A restaurant the owners can drive home from
The reason for Toro's location is personal. The Pasco County Community Website reports that Fralick drives from Pasco County to Tampa most days to run his restaurants. About two years ago, he started thinking about bringing the same style of cooking closer to where he lives. When the Gunn Highway space came up for lease close to their home, the couple moved quickly.
Fralick told the Tampa Bay Business Journal, as quoted by the Pasco County Community Website, that he wanted good fish closer to home:
"So we decided to take a leap and open up a location out here."
That explains the format. A tasting room in Odessa would ask neighbors to plan an evening around it. A takeout counter fits the stops people already make at this intersection. The owners are part of that traffic too, since they commute home through this part of Pasco.
How the corner got here
The Shoppes at Starkey Crossing building is new. Clearwater-based KW Partners bought the land in 2022 for $2.67 million, according to Pasco County property records cited by the Pasco County Community Website. The corner around it has filled in gradually. The Chick-fil-A at 13402 State Road 54, at Gunn Highway, celebrated its opening on October 4, 2025. The Lash Lounge, at 2298 Gunn Highway, Suite 9, is in the same Shoppes at Starkey Crossing center. Down the road, Pizza World at 2328 Gunn Highway serves pizza, wings, subs, pasta and calzones.
Toro adds a restaurant to this mix from the team whose Tampa rooms have earned a Michelin star and two Michelin recommendations, with a sushi and nigiri selection modeled on Noble Rice's.
Fitting Toro into a Gunn Highway errand
Toro's address is 2290 Gunn Highway, inside the Shoppes at Starkey Crossing just off State Road 54. The restaurant is designed for takeout, so a pickup order is meant to fit into an evening stop on the same corner as the custard stand and the bagel shop. The Fralicks' other restaurants are in Hyde Park and at Water Street, which makes Toro the group's only location in Pasco County.
If you're thinking about how changes like Toro's arrival affect the value of an Odessa home near Gunn Highway and SR 54, Austin Marks Group follows this corridor storefront by storefront and can show you how it plays into your home's price. Get your free home valuation.
