Over 50 St. Pete

Beach Drive · new american

The ground-floor restaurant of The Birchwood, a hotel in a 1924 Spanish Mission-style building that began as the Lantern Lane Apartments and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Owner Chuck Prather named the hotel for a neighborhood his father developed in Hillsborough County, and a 12-by-24-foot mural of a birch forest covers the south wall. The Canopy rooftop bar is upstairs and a ballroom fills the fourth floor. Prather also runs Teak, Pier Teaki and Driftwood Cafe on the St. Pete Pier.

4th Street North · burgers, american

El Cap is the 4th Street burger bar with the red neon baseball sign. St. Pete Catalyst traces it to 1958, when Louis Joseph Svabek opened it in a 1948 building as one of his 'Cap' beer joints; Steve and Rose Bonfili of Pennsylvania took it over in 1963, and their son Frank turned it into what many call the city's first sports bar. Johnny Johnson has hand-formed the patties since 1992 and once made 2,300 in a day. Mary Jean Bonfili left the place to two longtime servers when she died in 2019, and in January 2023 Seed & Feed Hospitality, run by St. Pete natives, bought half while Cindy Nally kept the other half. The order is the World Champ cheeseburger.

Old Northeast · italian-inspired steakhouse, steak, pasta, seafood, italian contemporary, wood-fired

Elliott Aster is the signature restaurant at The Vinoy, a collaboration between the resort, chef Lee Wolen and Chicago's Boka Restaurant Group. It opened on 20 May 2025 and was added to the MICHELIN Guide Florida a year later. The guide describes an Italian-inspired steakhouse with high ceilings and large chandeliers ... wood-fired steaks, house-made pastas, focaccia rolls, radiatore alla vodka and a caramel coffee budino. There is an antipasti bar, a lounge that opens before the dining room, and a Sunday brunch. Wolen was a 2025 James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Chef for his Chicago work.

Downtown · pan-asian, wagyu steak, sushi, steakhouse

Fortu opened in late November 2023 on the ground floor of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, in the space Ceviche Tapas Bar had held since 1997 before it moved to Beach Drive in 2021. It was founded by Shan Bakrac and is run through Benson Hospitality Group, with Nathan Howey as executive chef and managing partner. The kitchen is pan-Asian and built for sharing, with Japanese A5 wagyu, wagyu gyoza and Australian wagyu picanha on the menu and a bar that leans on Japanese whisky and sake. MICHELIN's inspectors call it an attractive, high-energy dining room with handsome wood finishes. It has been listed in both years Pinellas County has been eligible.

4th Street North · seafood, shrimp, grouper

The Shrimp Store has been on 4th Street North since 1984. Its own history page says the building went up in 1928 as a service station for Model T Fords, later became a laundry with a small seafood market in one corner, and the market's fried shrimp baskets and grouper sandwiches grew into the restaurant. It expanded in 1997.

Gulfport · bar food

The building went up in 1925 and has been a bar for almost 100 years ... Walt's Place, the Swamp Club, Gulfport on the Rocks for 40 years, then Salty's, before Hurricane Eddie's moved in late in 2020. St. Pete Rising reports it held one of the first liquor licenses in Pinellas County. Helene flooded it in September 2024 and it stayed shut for 16 months, serving on the patio from St. Patrick's Day 2025 while the walls, floors, ceilings and restrooms were rebuilt. It reopened on March 12, 2026 with live music Friday to Sunday, poker, bingo, karaoke and a Thursday locals night.

Live music some nights. Go before the band starts if you want to talk.

Grand Central District · izakaya, sake, french-japanese small plates, oysters, sake bar, ramen, small plates

In Between Days opened in August 2021 in a 1925 Craftsman bungalow, the idea of Pinellas native Zach Ashton, a recording artist turned restaurateur. It is modeled on Tokyo's underground listening bars ... a pair of 1972 Klipsch Cornwall speakers behind the bar, two turntables, and records played a full side at a time under oil lanterns. The room is small on purpose: its own profile counts 7 tables and 6 bar stools. Beverage director Noah Sain leads a team of sake sommeliers over what local press calls Florida's largest sake collection, and chef Justin Shwetzer cooks a short rotating menu of gyoza, hamachi, oysters and a noodle dish. It joined the MICHELIN Guide Florida in 2026.

Live music some nights. Go before the band starts if you want to talk.

St. Pete Beach · seafood, spanish

The dinner room inside the Pink Palace, which has stood on the beach since 1928. The hotel was damaged in the 2024 storms and came back in stages; in March 2026 it announced the end of a renovation that refreshed its ground-floor rooms. Maritana now cooks Spanish-leaning Gulf seafood, with local redfish and a Wagyu tomahawk on the menu, under executive chef Alexander Reyes. The hotel's Beacon Pool Bar is the room day visitors use for a drink on the beach.

Beach Drive

The rooftop bar of The Birchwood, a 1924 building first known as the Lantern Lane Apartments and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Two floors were added in the renovation, and the top one looks out over Tampa Bay and the St. Pete Pier, with cabanas and fire pits. Wednesday is $8 martini night.

Go early. It turns into a late-night spot later in the evening.

Downtown · sushi, tapas, tiki

Tiki drinks, tapas, pool tables and more than 50 sushi rolls on the 600 block. Chef and co-founder Tom Golden opened it in 2016 after renovating a building the restaurant says is 125 years old, one that ran as a bar in the 1930s and 40s and 'even served as a brothel at one point'. The house catchphrase is 'I'm starvin', make me some cold dead fish'. Weekend brunch features Granny Sage's biscuits and gravy.

4th Street North · american, pub fare

A tavern in a century-old farmhouse on 4th Street North with a summer orchard and verandas, built around what it calls the spirit of Old Florida. Happy hour is half off drafts, house wines and wells. Its site also lists a Beach Drive Walk Up Cafe at 400 Beach Dr and a Gulfport drive-thru.