Recs for dining or beaches in Sarasota fl

Where are you in Sarasota? I can give you lots of suggestions based on where you are. Traffic can be a nightmare in the city.

Be glad its not February with the snowbirds and tourist in full force! Ok. I know exactly the area you are staying. Downtown and St. Armand's circle both have great places. Classic would be Columbia Restaurant, Crab and Fin - excellent seafood. Dont sleep on the Tommy Bahama restaurant. Great service/food and people watching. Across the bridge back into Sarasota, in the marina area is a cool little beach bar called O'Learys. Downtown - Owen's Fish camp, Indigenous( Bobby Flay was just there),Boca and for woodfired pizza/Italian - Bavaro's.
Enjoy the area!

Thank you for the suggestions!!

bump.

quick update. had a really great time in sarasota. tried siesta public beach, siesta key, longboat and lido key.

lido key by FARRRRRRR my favorite beach. free public parking (even middle of day when it was busy), short walk to beach, concession area right there w/ frozen drinks, lobster rolls and kids drinks, a DJ , public pool you could use for just $4/day if you wanted, quarter mile from armond circle and all the shops & restaurants.

that's the background. the real gem is the amount of SEALIFE. my little 8yo boy went absolutely nuts diving in the gulf for about 5 straight hours (i have the sunburn to prove it ) and he would come up with these giant starfish, live sand dollars the size of tortillas, a zillion live conches, chased a blue crab on the bottom of the water until we were almost pass the bouy and a few other assorted creatures.

Absolutely my favorite of all the areas in Sarasota hands down. Just a beautiful beach and you can get away with carrying just a couple of chairs & an umbrella and not 200 lbs of beach crap.


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as for dining, walt's did not disappoint, cha cha coconut was good, clam bar was good, daquiri deck and half priced calamari was banging and rico's pizza was delicious.

we donated a ton of unopened food to st. paul lutheran in mid-town when we left and they were so grateful even though i'm sure they get a ton of visitors stopping off w/ unused food items.

i have no complaints other than traffic but that's a super minor quibble compared to how much fun we had.

my favorite beach vacation by far.


next time we're going to get a little bungalow in lido key now that we KNOW.

i'd never leave the armond circle area or hell, probably never leave the concession stand on the beach.

Anna Marie down to Lido is probably the best stretch of beach on the Gulf Coast. We own a home in Long Boat and plan to retire there one day.