The Avenue – St. Petersburg, FL

Tonight we planned to eat at a new restaurant called Bucket’s Grill & Comfort Food.  It’s nothing fancy, but it’s gotten pretty good reviews.  However, I got home from work and noticed crowds of people, police cars, and closed streets around Dale Mabry.  It turns out that our dinner time coincided with the President of the United States landing at MacDill Air Force Base, which meant that getting to Buckets would be almost impossible. 

So instead we decided to avoid the traffic and head to St. Pete.  We heard that The Avenue (the first restaurant featured on my blog) had an updated menu, and the Burger of the Month for September is called “the DUDE”. 

Lance is a big fan of the The Big Lebowski – he even named our (female) cat Dude after the main character from the movie.  And our spare bedroom has Lebowski art mixed in with the Steelers décor. 

This video outlining the making of the burger is really what convinced us to head there: 
Click here to see the video.

We aren’t really sure how the ingredients are inspired from the movie, but regardless it sounded amazing!  It consists of an 8 ounce Angus beef patty, house-made duck pastrami, Swiss cheese, and house-made mustard on rye swirl bread served with bleu cheese balsamic drizzled kettle chips. 

We both ended up getting the same meal and we weren’t disappointed.  The burger itself was unlike any I’ve ever had – I loved the duck pastrami and the homemade mustard complimented the flavor very well.  The bread was nice and crispy, and the kettle chips were generously covered in large chunks of bleu cheese. We enjoyed the burgers with Yuengling beer (although if we were really trying to go with the Lebowski-themed night, we would have ordered White Russians…)

The atmosphere of The Avenue was completely different at night than during the day.  Last time when we dined there for lunch, there were only a few other restaurant patrons and it was very relaxed.  Tonight it was packed with a trivia night crowd on the patio and people watching the Ray’s game inside.   

If you have the chance to make it there by the end of the month, I’d strongly recommend this burger.  Hopefully they’ll put it on the regular menu!

The Avenue is located at 330 1st Ave South, Saint Petersburg, FL 33701 and open 11:30am - 3:00am Monday through Sunday. 

the Avenue - St. Petersburg, FL

My boyfriend Lance & I both had off work today, so we headed to St. Petersburg for the day.  We spent the morning exploring Sawgrass Lake Park, then took a walk around downtown St. Pete.  After reading good reviews (and seeing some awesome food photos!) on Yelp, we decided to try out the Avenue eat/drink.  

Right in the heart of downtown, the Avenue describes its restaurant as a "modern eatery specializing in original burger creations".  

Before we even saw the menu, I was happy with our restaurant choice.  It has a rustic industrial design with an inviting atmosphere.  

I knew I wanted to try a burger since that is their specialty, but it was hard to pick just one thing off the menu since everything sounded delicious! I ended up choosing the Rasta Monsta - a burger with jerk seasoning, applewood bacon, jerk sauce, pepperjack cheese, and mango & pineapple chutney.  Lance chose the Philly - a hoagie with steak, onions, poblano peppers, mushrooms, and American cheese.  And while we waited, we split a pitcher of Yuengling - on special for only $7!  

There is lots to look at while you wait for your food - we were seating at a booth right next to a wall of knick-knacks.  They had the World Cup playing on several of the TVs, but I was happy that several of the TVs were actually playing Food Network!  So we watched Rachael Ray while waiting for our food.   

The food arrived and of course I had to take photos before we dug in.  I ordered the sweet potato fries to accompany my meal - Lance had the cajun fries.  They showed up in mini-metal baskets on our plates.  I would definitely recommend my meal, although only to people with a sweet-tooth like me.  My fries were covered in a honey drizzle and powdered sugar (reminded me of a funnel cake), and the chutney on my burger was pretty sweet too.  

The cajun spice on Lance's fries had a nice kick.  The Philly sandwich was overall tasty, but nothing too special.  We just had burgers at my parents' place a few nights ago for Father's Day, so he said he wanted to switch it up, but he agreed that the burgers are the thing to order at the Avenue.  

This was a great find and we'll definitely be back to the Avenue in the future.  We found out they have $5 burger specials on Wednesdays and they also have some fancy cocktails we want to try out if we are there for dinner next time.  If you're looking for a unique burger in the Tampa Bay area, it's worth the trip over the bridge.  

The Avenue is located at 330 1st Ave South, Saint Petersburg, FL 33701 and open 11:30am - 3:00am Monday through Sunday.