John Horne, managing partner of the AMOB Restaurant on the Historic Bridge Street Pier, once operated a restaurant on the Anna Maria City Pier. Horne said Dec. 21 he had forgotten in the 15 years since he ran his business in Anna Maria how drastic December could be for food sales on the island.
It’s the time of year when decorations and trees go up, but the food business goes down, several restaurateurs said.
“We’re certainly looking forward to Dec. 26,” Horne said with a laugh. We could do as much in volume the week between Christmas and New Year’s as we did in the three weeks before Christmas.
“It hasn’t changed much. The first three weeks of December are very slow on the island. People are off the island,” Horne said.
Christopher Dale, co-owner of The Feast in the Island Shopping Center, 5406 Marina Drive, in Holmes Beach, said Dec. 21 that while sales have “been good so far, it’s always quiet on the island this time of year. Everybody is in town shopping and doing their Christmas stuff. But it’s still been a good holiday season for us.”
Dale, whose restaurant opened about seven years ago, said, “It’s better than last year. Every year is a little better, a little stronger” since the recession that began in December 2007.
Tanner Enoch, manager of the Anna Maria Island Beach Cafe at Manatee Public Beach in Holmes Beach, said the weather Dec. 21 was “not that great” but he was hoping for 80 degrees and sunny Christmas weekend. He was serving guests Christmas Day.
That would be “phenomenal, being right here on the public beach,” he said of nice weather. “Last year, we caught ‘90 degrees and sunny’ and we’re hoping this year will be the same.”
Like greeting card companies rely on holidays and occasions to generate high sales volume, restaurants rely on New Year’s Eve to make up for slow sales the weeks before Christmas.
Dale said The Feast is taking reservations for New Year’s Eve with a “holiday-oriented” menu — grilled Florida lobster tails and filet mignon with a wild mushroom demi-glace. “We’re pretty booked already,” he said.
Enoch’s cafe will celebrate New Year’s Eve by hosting a countdown to the new year at 7:30 p.m. with a Champagne toast.
“We call it, ‘It’s midnight somewhere,’” Enoch said. Somewhere, like Lisbon, Portugal or London, where the clocks are five hours ahead of Holmes Beach.
Ed Chiles, owner of The Beach House in Bradenton Beach, the Sandbar in Anna Maria and Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant & Pub on Longboat Key, said Dec. 21 that if the weather breaks, then “it’s always a great week for us.
“It’s a challenge because you go from all the way off to all the way on” Dec. 23-Jan. 2. “You get ready and you hope to fill your coffers back up a little bit. Then it slows back down in January and then it revs back up at the end of the month with the official beginning of the season in February through Easter.”
Business on the island, Chiles said, has been good and he doesn’t see that changing. Because of ongoing building at the Beach House, the restaurant will not host a New Year’s Eve fireworks display this year. But Chiles said the Sandbar would offer “The Feast of the Seven Fishes” as the year closes out.
AMOB will celebrate its anniversary soon. So Horne said he’ll have sales data to sift through. He’ll be able to compare sales year over year.
“We’re real pleased to be back on the island,” said Horne, whose momentum was affected by a lawsuit regarding the pier lease that was negotiated and signed with former Bradenton Beach Mayor Jack Clarke — and that has been settled. “We’ve had a tremendous acceptance from the locals. The island is old for us. It’s great to be home.”