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By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Staff Writer
To say the past year was the best of times and the worst of times would be too much of a stretch. In so many ways 2001 was ugly. Even in the modest arena of Tampa Bay restaurants, where I work and we all eat, these were tough times, long before Sept. 11. For more than a year, shopping center developers and big chains had piled new restaurants on top of each other at Centro Ybor, BayWalk, Channelside, Outback's Boy Scout Boulevard campus and renovations of WestShore Plaza and Hyde Park. On a few occasions, brave independents opened too. And the very week of the attacks on the World Trade Center, International Plaza opened and added a dozen more restaurants. For diners it has been a year of eating uncertainly from a bewildering array of choices. For restaurateurs, even those who just opened their doors, it meant massive competition (for customers and staff), recession and wartime anxiety among locals, skittish business travelers and vanishing tourists.
At year's end, the signs were plain: "All You Can Eat" specials hung on many restaurants, "Closed" on others, including Brunello, Native Seafood, Mise en Place's casual Bistro, Outback's uptown Zazarac, New City Bistro and St. Andrew's Steakhouse. Those that didn't go dark reduced prices, hours or standards. Most had many tables sitting empty with sales down 25 to 33 percent. High-end restaurants fared worse and tourist-dependent dining rooms on Pinellas beaches turned ghostly. Yet elsewhere the year's dining scene glittered like a fantastical pleasure dome. Trendy lamps made of Italian glass dropped from ceilings, wood-burning ovens smoked with goat cheese pizza, and gleaming restrooms showcased sleek hardware and glossy tilework. Young staffs cloned the Dawson Creek cast, turned out in crisp black and white as they buzzed about theater kitchens and Dali-esque dining rooms. "Flair bartenders" muddled mojitos and mixed extreme martinis while banks of blenders spun kaleidoscopes of daiquiris and margaritas. So far, the dueling marketplaces have produced erratic rushes, but there is one surprise winner: downtown St. Petersburg on weekend nights. It doesn't extend much past Third Street, and the area around Tropicana Field is largely one of broken dreams, but the boom zone between BayWalk's movie-n-meals mall and restaurants along Central Avenue is remarkably alive Friday and Saturday nights. Not just for dining: crowds now come to the one-time land of the green benches for drinking, dating and club-hopping.
Behind the flash, however, most of Tampa Bay's new restaurants taste the same. While most of the restaurant companies sent in the best decorators South Florida has to offer, few sent chefs to match. From 40-some new restaurants opened in the last 18 months, only a handful, led by Clearwater's Island Way Grill, T.C. Choy's and Roy's, the new Hawaiian fusion partner of Outback, turn out truly good food. Instead, most serve a homogenized Slacker Fusion: portobello sandwiches, seared tuna, Asian chicken salad wraps, rasta pasta, raspberry vinaigrette and the immutable trinity of desserts: tiramisu, creme brulee and Chocolate Embarrassment.
That's a slight improvement from the previous fern bar mix here: Italian, Cuban and Cajun in Tampa and Italian, Cuban and grouper in Pinellas. Whatever came out of the new kitchens, it carried a national brand, and that may be all that matters. Overall, 2001 saw the triumph of big names and big money, usually from out of town. We've had plenty of chains, but this was the Year of Premium Brands. A brand-hungry market cheered branches of the Palm Steakhouse, Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen. Established names penetrated deeper, bringing Cracker Barrel to St. Petersburg, Starbucks to Clearwater and St. Petersburg and Panera throughout the region. A still bigger name arrived nearby with the opening of a Ritz Carlton in Sarasota. The showpiece of corporate theme dining was the arrival of Maggiano's Little Italy at WestShore Plaza, which puts big parties back 70 years at big tables of red-sauced pasta and chicken Vesuvio served on family-style platters. The idea, cooked up by Chicago's Lettuce Entertain You, is now a 16-unit chain in the Brinker family of Chili's and Steak & Ale. Although much of the energy and ideas behind the new places, corporate and independent, came from out of state -- Dish from Boston, Bamboo Club from Phoenix, Samba Room from Dallas -- more was attracted from Florida's own hip clublands. South Florida sent martini bars and Dan Marino himself to colonize Tampa and St. Petersburg. Entrepreneurs came from Naples and Sarasota to run Alberto's Fusion Grille, Mattison's and Grattzi in St. Petersburg and Mia's in Tampa. Tampa Bay is hardly an innocent in corporate cooking; it serves as an incubator for chains that want to go national. This year Outback acquired St. Petersburg's Bonefish; Fred Fleming's Famous Bar-B-Q, also born on St. Petersburg's Fourth Street, now has six locations; and Clearwater-based Hooters has begin to roll out its next delightfully tacky concept, Pete & Shorty's. Two other new places, Saute Cafe in Feather Sound and Stump's Supper Club, hope to grow up to be a chain. Yet even ardent chain-bashers have to thank the Panera bakery chain, Starbucks, Einstein Bros., Borders and Barnes & Noble for promoting and providing a new kind of all-ages gathering place. The millennial drinking establishments provide no booze, just espresso, chai tea, good breads and space to read and talk about anything, including the evils of mass-marketed coffeehouses. Look into those coffee grounds long enough however and you'll see clues that a more appetizing future lies ahead.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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