Two Storefronts at Sophia Square Changed Names This Fall. Both Owners Went Back to Their Own Idea.

"This isn't a sad goodbye. It's a return to our roots." The owners of Josephine posted that line on Instagram on Aug. 12, eleven days before the French restaurant at 110 W. Main St. served its last dinner.

At almost the same time, a few doors down in the same building, the couple who had run Bober Tea & Mochi Dough for nearly four years took down the franchise name and put up one they made themselves. Each change was reported on its own. Seen together, the two moves at Sophia Square line up. In both cases the people already running the business dropped a concept that started somewhere else and replaced it with something that carries their own family's name and recipes.

The corner at Main Street and First Avenue SW

Sophia Square is the five-story building at the corner of West Main Street and First Avenue SW in the Arts & Design District. Indianapolis-based Keystone Group developed it as a $60 million project with 214 apartments and 33,000 square feet of retail, and it opened in 2011.

The building's anchor restaurant space covers 5,162 square feet. The Pint Room was there for nearly a decade before it closed in late 2023. Ambrosia Hospitality Group, owned by husband and wife Dan and Anna Cage, took over the space and opened Josephine there in early 2025. The group also owns Bocca in Fall Creek Place, the cocktail bar Nowhere Special on Massachusetts Avenue, and The Commodore, a speakeasy in Fountain Square. Josephine was planned as a 125-seat room serving steak frites, croque monsieur, French wines and cognacs. Dan Cage told the Indianapolis Business Journal that the building's architecture reminded him of his time in Paris.

So Josephine was a concept built for this building. Its replacement has a 47-year track record somewhere else.

What arrived in Suite 100

Gino Pizzi's family came to the United States from Italy in the 1960s, and he opened Ambrosia in 1979. The original restaurant is still operating at 5903 N. College Ave. in Indianapolis. Anna Cage is Gino Pizzi's daughter. She and Dan bought a controlling interest in the original Ambrosia in 2019. This means the Carmel opening is the family's own restaurant coming to Carmel. It is not a new brand testing the market.

The restaurant's website tells the story further back. The Pizzi family worked wrought iron in Liguria for more than a century before they ever fed anyone. Anna, who is named after her grandmother, now runs Ambrosia with Dan. The site says management "works the floor" next to the staff, covering the host stand, expo, bar and bussing, "whatever the room needs."

Ambrosia Carmel is open now, and its homepage says so in a scrolling banner. It was announced for late September, and diner reviews were showing up on OpenTable by the start of October. Here is what to know before you go:

• Address: 110 W. Main St., Unit 100. The website's page title shows 100 W Main St, but the booking listing and the earlier news coverage both use 110.
• Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.
• Getting a table: Reservations go through OpenTable. The bar seats walk-ins.
• Price band: OpenTable puts it at $31 to $50.
• The menu: The restaurant calls its heritage Ligurian and names the family lasagna, Bosco Mare and linguine con vongole among its family-table favorites. It calls Vermentino a Ligurian staple. The posted dinner menu also has a mushroom ragù and a seafood pasta.

Josephine was the owners' take on another country's food. Ambrosia is their family's own cooking. As the Instagram post put it, "What started with Gino (Pizzi)'s dream in 1979 has grown into generations of family, recipes, tradition and countless memories made around the table."

Four years under someone else's sign in Suite 106

Hari and Aparna Prasad took over the Bober Tea & Mochi Dough shop and reopened it under their ownership in the summer of 2024. In late August 2026, Current in Carmel reported that they had stopped operating as a franchise. The shop is now Bobalato & Mochi Co., still at 110 W. Main St., Suite 106.

Aparna Prasad explained the change in terms that sound a lot like the Ambrosia announcement. "Over time, we realized that we wanted the freedom to create something that was truly our own, something that reflected our ideas, our customers and the kind of experience we wanted to bring to the Carmel community," she told Current. She added that the rebrand "is much more than changing the name or signage," and described a gradual shift toward a wider café and dessert menu built on freshly made products.

The menu shows where that freedom went. Freshly churned gelato is the biggest addition. Next to it are mochi bubble waffle sundaes, bobalato cup sundaes, specialty coffee and affogatos, milkshakes, Korean-style egg drop sandwiches and bobalato melts. The shop's online menu lists bubble waffle sundaes from $13.99 to $16.99, a Beef Bulgogi sandwich for $14.75, six mochi donuts for $18.99 and a dozen for $34.99.

You can order online every day from 10:15 a.m. to 8:59 p.m. The shop warns that in-store hours can differ and points customers to Google for current walk-in times.

Same building, same decision, different scale

The two businesses are very different in size. One is a full-service Italian dining room in the building's 5,000-square-foot anchor space. The other is a dessert counter in Suite 106. The decisions behind the changes are what match. In each case, the owners had already been running the business day to day. Each time, what changed was who wrote the concept. Josephine was designed for this location, and Bober was licensed from a franchise. Ambrosia Carmel and Bobalato both come from recipes and ideas that belong to the people behind the counter.

Both owners describe the same hands-on approach. Ambrosia's site talks about management bussing tables and running expo. Aparna Prasad says she and Hari handle everything "from developing menu ideas and testing products to listening to customer feedback and finding ways to improve." She also says they will keep experimenting with products "that combine different flavors and cultures in a fun way."

For anyone who lives within walking distance, this means both menus can now change whenever the owners decide. No franchise system or one-off concept sets the limits. Both businesses tie that freedom to what they hear from guests.

One block east, an artist-owned room opens Nov. 6

The same pattern shows up a short walk away. The Shieling Gallery at 27 E. Main St. will hold its first opening reception on Friday, Nov. 6, from 5 to 9 p.m. The reception is free and features April Willy and Karen Glanders. Visit Hamilton County describes The Shieling as an artist-owned gallery focused on contemporary and modern art, including work by emerging and local artists. The gallery hasn't posted regular hours yet, so the reception is the one confirmed time to see the space.

South of Main, Mike Klimek opened Evolution Motorwerks on Aug. 3 at 1020 3rd Ave. SW, Building A, a few minutes from the Monon Trail and the district. At 31 S. Range Line Rd., Sean and Miranda Armie have proposed tearing down a former house and rebuilding it as Stella House Books. In Current's May report, the revised plan was headed to committee review, and we haven't found a later update on whether it was approved.

That is a different stretch of the city from this summer's Monon Boulevard projects, which we covered in what actually landed on Carmel's Monon. Those were city-funded public spaces. The Main Street changes are smaller, privately owned decisions, made one storefront at a time.

Putting the corner to use on Nov. 6

The gallery reception falls on a Friday, the night Ambrosia stays open until 10. That makes it the easiest evening this fall to see all three places in one trip:

1. Start at The Shieling, 27 E. Main St., any time after 5 p.m.
2. Walk west along Main Street to Sophia Square at First Avenue SW for dinner at Ambrosia. Book through OpenTable or try for a walk-in seat at the bar.
3. Finish with gelato or an affogato at Bobalato in Suite 106 of the same building. Check Google for that night's hours first, since the shop says in-store times can differ from its online ordering window.

If you're driving in from the west side, the city's June schedule put the W. Main Street reconstruction between Old Meridian and Guilford Road in a June-to-November window, with partial closures and local access maintained. The city calls those timelines estimates that can change, so check the latest traffic alerts before you head out.

Owner-run businesses changing hands along Main Street affect what it's like to live within walking distance of the Carmel Arts & Design District. If you own a home near that corner and want to know what your house is worth this fall, Duke Collective can help. Get your free home valuation and we'll walk you through the numbers.