The Oyster Bar – St. Pete, FL

 

Last Friday was our 4 year anniversary, and months ago we had booked tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld live at the Mahaffey Theatre.  For dinner before, we tried The Oyster Bar in downtown St. Pete.  We had bought a CL deal awhile ago, so we had a discount too. 

 

 

 

We made reservations since it was a weekend and thought it could be busy, but we didn’t realize it was First Friday, which meant the entire road that The Oyster Bar is located on was shut down for the event.

We were walking from the restaurant to the show, so we tried out some of their drink specials.  The Moscow Mules weren’t anything too special, but the Oyster Shooters were great (and the beer shooters were only $1 – the classic vodka shooters were a bit strong for me). 

 

I had the seared diver scallops with risotto, crispy pancetta, and arugula.  Lance had the bacon-parmesan crusted local red grouper with tomato butter sauce and mashed potatoes.  The grouper could have used a tiny bit of something green for presentation on the plate, but besides that both meals were amazing.    

We split a slice of chocolate peanut-butter pie for dessert.  I can’t believe we hadn’t eaten here before, but we really enjoyed it and will be back for sure!

Jerry Seinfeld had a hilarious set that night, so it was the perfect way to spend our anniversary.  

 

The Oyster Bar is located at 249 Central Ave, St Petersburg, FL 33701.  They are open 11am – 12am Monday – Thursday, 11am – 3am Friday – Saturday, and 10:30 – 12am on Sunday. 

Crab Shack – St. Petersburg, FL

 

While Brandi & Jeremy were in town, they wanted to spend as much time at the beach and eat as much seafood as possible. 

The last day they were here, we headed to Caladesi Island.  And even though my Apple Maps seems to think that Caladesi is completely separated from Clearwater Beach, it actually is connected, so we hiked from North Clearwater to the end of Caladesi and back (about 9 miles total…which is much more beach walking than I’m used to!) 

 

The last time I went to Caladesi was back in 2011.  Lance and I had only been dating a couple weeks at that point, and the beach was completely deserted.  We didn’t know about the connection to Clearwater, so we took a ferry over from Honeymoon Island to the north (there might not have even been a land bridge at that point…supposedly it has only been connected in recent years…) This time, Caladesi was packed with retirees and spring breakers – totally different than our last visit. 

 

Anyways, after our long beach walk, we were pretty hungry.  We planned to eat at The Bait House, but with all the beachgoers, it had an hour wait.  Instead, we stopped at Crab Shack on the way back over the Gandy bridge.   

We’ve dined there a couple times – it’s very casual and a bit divey, but the crab there is fantastic.  They don’t have much of a beer selection though unless you’re into Budweiser or Coors Light. 

We started with the Tater Skins with Bacon, Crab Meat, and Cheddar along with the coconut shrimp.  The coconut shrimp was great, but the potato skins didn’t seem like anything special (I’m sure it was real crab, but it didn’t seem like it…)

I always get the same meal there – the 1 ½ pounds of Alaskan Snow Crab, which comes with a potato or rice, and either salad or slaw. 

The salads are simple but very fresh. We were so hungry we all devoured ours before I got a picture.  The potatoes are pretty basic, served with sour cream and fake butter, but they are cooked just right.  The thing they really specialize in of course is their crab.  It’s served with some bright yellow butter dip (like what you’d pour over your movie theater popcorn), but the crab is so flavorful on its own, you really don’t need to add anything to it.  

They bring you buckets with scissors, metal crackers to break the legs, and thin wooden seafood picks to get every bit of crab meat out.  It’s a lot of messy work, but it’s worth it.  Just know that at some point you’ll probably get hit by a flying bit of crab shell – it’s not really a great place to go on a first date. 

We were all covered in sand, sunscreen, butter, and crab juice by the end of the day – but after some quick showers, we finished our evening with dessert at Yogurtology.  I especially liked their new flavor of the month, PB&J! 

Crab Shack is located at 11400 Gandy Blvd N, St Petersburg, FL 33702 and is open 11am – 10pm Monday – Thursday, 11am – 11pm Friday – Saturday, and 1pm – 10pm on Sunday.     

Yogurtology has several locations.  Tonight we visited the one at 3017 W Gandy Blvd, Tampa, FL 33611 and is open from 11am – 10pm Sunday through Thursday and 11am – 11pm Fridays and Saturdays. 

The Wharf – St. Pete Beach, FL

 

Lance’s sister Brandi & brother-in-law Jeremy are visiting from McCall, Idaho for the week.  We haven’t seen them for almost three years, so we are pretty excited to have them in town! 

It’s still snowing out in Idaho, so they wanted to head to the beach to enjoy the warm Florida weather and get their Vitamin D.  We spent the afternoon at Pass-A-Grille, which was packed with spring breakers. It was the perfect weather for a beach day – sunny with a breeze.    

We had lunch down the street at The Wharf, a beachy shack overlooking the Pass-A-Grille Marina.  It was pretty crowded, so we couldn’t get seating outdoors, but we got a window booth overlooking the water. 

 

 

We were going to cool off with some beer, but they were out of most of the local ones on the menu, so we settled for just waters. 

Since we were having dinner with my parents later that evening, we didn’t want to fill up too much, so we split a bunch of appetizers.  We started off with a dozen raw oysters.  They were some of the largest I’ve seen!

 

We also enjoyed the conch fritters and blacked buffalo shrimp, although it only came with 8 shrimp, so we devoured them quickly (it was an appetizer, so we shouldn’t have expected more). 

 

Since we were craving more shrimp, we shared the pound of peel-and-eat shrimp seasoned with Old Bay spice.  Jeremy had a PoBoy sandwich – they brought it out with fried grouper instead of blackened like he had ordered, but it still looked good. 

Overall, a nice place to relax and enjoy some casual seafood at the beach. 

The Wharf is located at 2001 Pass a Grille Way, St Pete Beach, FL 33706 and is open 11am – 11pm every day.   

SS Hookers – Fort Myers, FL

 

The past 4 Christmases, Lance and I have divided our time between Fort Myers and Tampa to spend time with both our families for the holidays.  This year we drove down the morning of Christmas Eve and ate lunch with Lance’s family as soon as we got in town. 

There is a new restaurant in Fort Myers called SS Hookers right before the toll to get over the bridge to Sanibel Island.  It has a modern nautical theme with a giant boat propeller at the bottom of the stairwell (to give you an idea of the scale, Lance is 6’1”).  It has beautiful tile floors made to look like wood, and subtle accents to remind you of being on a boat.  Since it was a nice day out (besides being a bit windy), we ate out on their patio, which has a nice view of the water across the road. 

 

We knew we had a large Christmas Eve dinner planned at Lance’s aunt & uncle’s home, so we ate pretty light.  They had several local Florida beers.  Our bartender was very nice, but she didn’t seem to know much about beer when we asked her about the different options…maybe she’s still learning since it’s such a new place. 

Lance and LG both had the Cajun Crab and Corn Chowder (which was delicious).  Rita had the Sweet-N-Spicy Pecan Spinach Salad, which had pears, apples, roasted peppers, onions, and bleu cheese crumbles.  And I had the Cajun Shrimp appetizer, which consisted of huge Gulf shrimp coated in spices served over a salad with tomato and garlic aioli. 

 

There were plenty of entrees that sounded amazing, but the appetizers were the perfect size for us.  That evening we had a huge feast of ham and pineapple, sweet potato casserole, green beans, and more. 

SS Hookers is located at 17501 Harbour Pointe Drive, Fort Myers, FL 33908 and is open 6am – 2am every day.