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Ride off to the Sunset and get a taste of great American food served with old-fashioned hustle.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 21, 2001
I never thought I'd say this. In the past few months, it's become possible to tire of sesame seared tuna, cobalt blue lamps, servers in designer uniforms and signature cocktails. Another wave of new restaurants is on the horizon, yet new already is fatiguing and squeaky-clean is boring.
Dining has become so sterilized that even in June in Florida, I'm over air conditioning too.
When I want real food with real people in a real place, I pull into the gravel lot and duck under the green patio roof to find a shady table at Sunset Grille, one just the right distance from the big outdoor fans.
I'm not alone. St. Petersburg has come here for beer and burgers for 50-some years, at least those neighborhoods of St. Petersburg that center on Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) Street N rather than Fourth Street N. That half-century of eating and drinking has left so much, let's call it, patina, it would take a decade to clean it up.
But then what to do about the customers? Coats, ties and high heels do show up, but Sunset is also open to folks with honest dirt on them, from hard labor with a wrench, a tough day in the yard or a foolish slide into third.
Every town and neighborhood used to have places like this, great after a game for folks who played sports as much as for those who watched them. Kay Evers is only the third owner of Sunset. She knows the value of friendly taverns and good sports. She grew up in Florida in a baseball family, the daughter of Hoot Evers, a centerfielder who hit .314 just behind DiMaggio in 1948. (You could look it up; I did.)
She bought the place 10 years ago and started to modernize. This year she decided to accept credit cards, remove the pool tables and put in air conditioning in the front dining room.
Still, cold beer isn't as cold inside as it is out where you can watch the concrete melt and telephone poles wilt. Beer here comes from breweries, not boutiques, because when beer is this cold you are drinking more than one. If you must have a green bottle, go for Rolling Rock.
Sunset Grille is a picnic-tables-'n'-pitchers place in the outdoors. Not a state park, but the Everyday Outdoor Florida of open-air coin laundries, pay phones without booths and construction workers in shorts.
The payoff is substantial: real burgers, homemade soups, ice cream milkshakes, prime rib sandwiches, all-star service and better-quality ingredients than many chains. Come here and you'll have to give up $10 lunches and $25 dinners.
If those don't appeal, reflect on these two words: Tater Tots. Yes, that Ore-Ida miracle of hash browns pelletized into a crisp puff of potato and grease. Those don't tickle your guilty conscience? Try mini corn dogs: a dozen jewels of sweetened cornmeal and processed weiner to pop in your mouth with nary a stick.
Those are cheap tricks, comfort foods and nostalgia from the flash freezer. What stands out about the Sunset Grille is how much a place this budget-friendly cares about good ingredients and good cooking.
Sure, they fry a lot, but they do it well and appropriately. French fries are perfectly crisp while steak fries are puffy. Mushrooms are fried whole in a very light batter that encases them like an ice storm. For fish and chips, I like cod in beer batter instead of crunchy cornmeal. Wings, however, were just right. I'd guess they are dipped in hot sauce before and after frying.
Breads are chosen carefully; hamburger on hamburger bun, but grouper on a kaiser and prime rib on an egg bun with horseradish and grilled onion, the best sandwich in the house. The lettuce is green leaf, and the tomatoes are ripe (and sometimes grape tomatoes on salads). Only one slice should have been pitched.
Good sandwiches need no more than simple ingredients, laid on with a generous hand. The Sunset Grille easily met my code on tuna salad, BLTs and quarter-pound burgers. The blackened grouper sandwich was the only loser, but I look forward to a Cuban, a veggie burger and a plain ol' hot dog. Add a pickle, fries or chips and a cold one -- it's noontime in America, neighbor.
Sunset's tiny kitchen goes beyond sandwiches and salads. Every day there's a new soup and a special: a skewer of blackened shrimp on yellow rice with fruit salad or a half-inch slab of pork from a genuine roast with lumpy mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, for well under $10. If you're lucky, Evers made dessert, maybe a cobbler with peaches, apples and cherries; if not, there's always a milkshake.
This all comes with warm, big league service that prefers tie-dyed T's to black ties and is a joy to experience. Like a veteran lineup, they work the territory and field problems like a team; like a family, they seem to value customers more than tips.
Not to mention stamina and skill, like the quadruple play I saw one night. Dana Mitchell had a full pitcher for one table in her right hand, a tray for another on her left, a check between her teeth, and still stopped to drop off an extra glass for us.
In the long summer of our miseries, it refreshes me to rediscover old-fashioned hustle, burgers, fries and cold beer to see us through hotter days.
If that's not enough for you, go to the mall. It's cool inside.
Sunset Grille
2996 Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) St. N, St. Petersburg
(727) 823-2382 Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday
Reservations: No
Credit cards: MC, V
Details: Smoking permitted; beer and wine; wheelchair access via 30th Avenue; restroom not adapted.
Prices: $2.75 to $7.95
Special features: Outdoor seating, takeout