New restaurant openings in Orlando are up, but development challenges loom

Orlando continues to attract an outsize share of interest from both established and new restaurant concepts, and there was a notable uptick in activity in the last year. More than 530 new restaurant licenses were approved in the Central Florida market (including the Daytona Beach and Melbourne areas) between July 2023 and June 2024, and nearly half were in Orange County, according to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.