Walk the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Avenida Messina on any Friday night and it looks like the Village at its most varied. Steaks at Summer House. Fish tacos at The Hub. A cocktail on the porch at The Cottage. A game on at MVP. Poke bowls a few doors down. Five menus, five vibes, five reasons to pick one over another depending on what you're in the mood for.
Those five menus come from concepts built by the same two people.
One intersection, one ownership group
A Your Observer report says Chris Brown and Mike Granthon run Above the Bar Hospitality Group, and between them they own Beach Club, The Hub Baja Grill, The Cottage, Summer House Steak & Seafood, MVP (My Village Pub), and, as of this year, Siesta Poke, which Your Observer later listed among the group's open restaurants. That's six operations clustered around the same few blocks of Siesta Key Village, all reporting to the same two partners.
It didn't happen overnight. Brown moved to Sarasota in the early 1990s after his parents retired here and spent his early years in the wholesale car business before moving into commercial real estate. Granthon came to Florida by way of Washington, D.C., where he'd attended junior high and high school after growing up in Peru. The two connected over a shared interest in hospitality and real estate, and once they had one property working, they started buying the ones next to it.
Beach Club came first, a Siesta Key night spot that's been open since 1947, long before Brown or Granthon arrived on the island. The Hub Baja Grill followed in 2008, opened in what had been a real estate office. The Cottage came next, built into an actual pecky-cypress cottage that had been moved to Avenida Messina from the beach. Summer House Steak and Seafood opened in March 2018 as the pair's most ambitious project yet, a 155-seat dinner-only room with steaks that start at $50 and a design nod to a Siesta Key landmark that stood on the same site decades earlier. As Siesta Sand reported, MVP opened more recently, in the space that Napoli's Italian Restaurant used to occupy at 5200 Ocean Boulevard.
How the corner filled in
The restaurants are only part of the picture; the buildings around them matter too. In 2014, Brown and Granthon bought eight separate buildings along the Village's main stretch, not just the ones they'd turn into restaurants.
The deal covered these Village properties:
- the old Siesta Market building, where Morton's Siesta Market now sits
- the former Siesta Key Hardware space, now occupied by Siesta Village Liquors
- the Sea Shanty and Meany's Mini Donuts buildings
The restaurant openings and building purchases together show Above the Bar's restaurant operations and property holdings in the Village. MVP's opening marked a more recent addition to the restaurant lineup.
Two new restaurants join the Village
As Siesta Sand reported, the Village picked up two new restaurants at once this past season, and they tell two different stories about how the place actually grows.
Siesta Poke opened in late August at 5204 Ocean Boulevard, next door to Made in Rome Organic Gelato. It's a build-your-own poke and açaí bowl concept, and it's the newest addition to the Above the Bar roster, joining Beach Club and MVP among the group's restaurants that stayed open through last fall's recovery period. It adds another restaurant to the group.
The Duo Doner & Deli is the other new arrival, and it's not part of that group at all. It opened at 5049 Ocean Boulevard in the Siesta Center, run by chef Jakub Skoczylas and his wife Maja Rakowiecka. Skoczylas trained under a Michelin chef in Sweden before working stints in Croatia and the U.K., then landed in Sarasota as an executive sous chef at Founders Club before he and Rakowiecka opened their own spot. Their menu leans on Turkish doner kebabs, a recipe Skoczylas describes as a five-day double marinade he picked up from friends in the U.K., alongside breakfast sandwiches, smash burgers, and coffee. In August, Sarasota Magazine named it one of the best new restaurants in Sarasota.
The Village's two newest openings sit about a block and a half apart. One expands an established restaurant group's portfolio, while the other is an independent restaurant run by two people who moved from Poland. They offer different dining options.
How the restaurants fit together
None of this changes what any of these restaurants tastes like or what a meal there costs. The five original Above the Bar concepts serve different occasions: Beach Club is a night spot; Summer House offers steak dinners, The Hub casual fish-taco lunches, The Cottage porch drinks, and MVP game-day viewing. The five original concepts offer different dining options along the same block, within one ownership group, backed by a staff of more than 200 people who move between properties as needed.
The Village's restaurant turnover includes both additions to an established group and independent openings. Siesta Poke is part of Above the Bar's portfolio; The Duo Doner & Deli is an independent restaurant. Both add to the Village's dining options.
If you have a go-to order at three of these places, some of them share the same owners. It's one detail about the island's restaurant scene.
I track this stuff because it's part of what makes Siesta Key worth paying attention to, whether you're deciding where to eat tonight or wondering what's actually happening a few blocks from your front door. If you're curious what any of that means for your own address on the island, Shane Lewis puts together a free instant home valuation, no restaurant ownership required.
