Ticket Editor: Exciting new rooftop restaurant, bar openings for Sarasota, Bradenton area

Downtown Sarasota has a bunch of the region's best restaurants on ground level, plus three thrilling rooftop destinations with views of Sarasota Bay and the city skyline. Downtown Bradenton also features 10 of my favorite restaurants, including a wildly popular rooftop spot with vistas of the Manatee River and Tampa Bay. Both downtown districts are booming, with future developments bringing as many as four more rooftop venues.

Downtown Sarasota should welcome another rooftop spot in the next year, with one under construction and two more proposed for the downtown Bradenton Riverwalk area. Let's begin by looking at the rooftop option coming to Sarasota, and then survey what's happening in Bradenton, as well as just across the river in Palmetto. Yes, it's an exciting time to be in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

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Mexican restaurant with rooftop lounge opening on Main Street in downtown Sarasota

Home to the popular El Melvin and Circo, downtown Sarasota will soon be adding another Mexican-style restaurant, just a few blocks away. Banditos Tacos & Tequila, with multiple locations in Maryland and Virginia, plans to open its first Florida spot later this year at 1468 Main St., my colleague Jimmy Geurts reported. Its rooftop lounge will be part of a second phase in 2024.

I stood on that rooftop area back in 2019 with local businessman Frank Segreti when he was going to open Tavern on Main Brewery there at the old Main Street Traders spot. (He instead rebranded the separate Tavern on Main nearby in downtown Sarasota as Pizza N' Brew, which also has a location on Siesta Key.) If memory serves, you enter what will be Banditos' rooftop area from a third-floor door and it offers views of the cityscape and the bustling 1400 block below.

Yeah, it should be a nice spot to enjoy the Banditos menu of Mexican faves like tacos, burritos, bowls and quesadillas. And the rooftop lounge should be quite the place for sipping tequila. Banditos offers a lengthy list of Mexico's most famous distilled beverages, which will taste even better when paired with those rooftop views of downtown.

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New downtown Bradenton hotel to include rooftop restaurant

If all goes as planned, the Bradenton City Hall in downtown overlooking the Manatee River will be replaced by The Vias, a mixed-use development that could reach up to 20 stories in height, my colleague Jesse Mendoza reported. In addition to about 350 apartment units, 80 or so condominiums, and 30,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space that appears to be mostly on the first floor, it will include a 130-room AC Hotel by Marriott.

The Vias is by L&L Development Group of West Palm Beach and partners including local developer Ron Allen and his Bradenton-based NDC Construction Company, as well as David Cocco’s company North Star Lodging Management, based in Pittsburgh.

Allen and Cocco previously collaborated on building the SpringHill Suites hotel located right next door in downtown Bradenton. Eight stories tall, it opened in 2019 and includes the Sarasota-Manatee-founded Oak & Stone restaurant on the first floor, as well as its rooftop lounge dubbed The Deck, which is among the most popular dining and drinking spots in Sarasota-Manatee.

“We’re changing the skyline of downtown Bradenton,” Cocco told me nearly four years ago while we took in the views of the Manatee River, including Pier 22 and Twin Dolphin Marina, and Tampa Bay.

He was right. SpringHill Suites and Oak & Stone, especially its rooftop bar, have been the best thing to happen to downtown Bradenton since the Riverwalk opened more than a decade ago.

Now, with the AC Hotel by Marriott next door, Cocco wants to "take it up a notch." The AC Hotel "will have a rooftop element," Cocco said at the Bradenton City Council meeting on April 12. "Our rooftop at the SpringHill Suites has done so great, right? It's really proven itself."

Yes, I have high hopes for the latest endeavor by Allen and Cocco, which will hopefully find them again reserving that rooftop venue for a proven local restaurant like they previously did with Oak & Stone, which serves some of the area's best pizza, wings, and on the weekends, brunches.

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New Marriott Palmetto hotel to feature rooftop Oyster River Bar

During my daily strolls along the Bradenton Riverwalk, I always make a point to gaze across the water and up at the progress taking place at the Marriott Palmetto hotel. It will be connected to the soon-to-be-upgraded Bradenton Area Convention Center via walkway and is expected to open in January, the convention center announced earlier this year.

This new hotel is eight stories high with 252 rooms, 10,000 square feet of meeting space, 32,420 square feet of outdoor space and a full-service restaurant as well as "a chic VIP rooftop lounge" called the Oyster River Bar. The rooftop area should provide impressive views of the Manatee River, especially at sunset. Marriott Palmetto will also be located within walking distance of another favorite waterfront restaurant of mine, Dockside Social Bar and Grill, which is located in the shadows of the Riviera Dunes condo towers and overlooks the Riviera Dunes Marina.

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Another rooftop restaurant proposed for Palmetto overlooking Manatee River

Ron Allen's booming NDC Construction could also soon be developing another prime waterfront property. NDC has partnered with the Hatfield Development Co. to make a $3.5 million bid to purchase Palmetto Community Redevelopment Agency's land by the base of the Green Bridge that's currently being used as overflow parking for the Riverside Boat Ramp, my colleague Mendoza reported.

The "mixed-use multifamily project with 153 units" features 6,350 square feet of retail space that includes a rooftop restaurant and bar. The new development would be within walking distance of the Safe Harbor Regatta Pointe Marina and its adjacent waterfront restaurants Mila's on the Manatee that opened in 2021 and the landmark Riverhouse Waterfront Restaurant.

Riverhouse, located at the end of a wood pier that cuts through the marina, offers spectacular views of the sun sinking into the mouth of the Manatee River and Gulf of Mexico. I imagine a nearby rooftop restaurant would offer similarly impressive views. Yes, big and exciting changes are coming to downtown Sarasota, Bradenton and Palmetto, with many taking place high above.

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Wade Tatangelo is Ticket Editor for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and Florida-Georgia Regional Dining and Entertainment Editor for the USA TODAY Network. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. Support local journalism by subscribing.??????

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New rooftop restaurants, bars opening in downtown Sarasota, Bradenton