Caragiulo's new restaurant comes to St. Armands

If you are a fan of Owen’s Fish Camp, Nancy’s Bar-B-Q and Caragiulos Italian Restaurant, then you will most likely be excited about the Carigiulo brothers’ latest venture — Shore Diner on St. Armands Circle.The new restaurant arose from a partnership with Tom Leonard, owner of Shore, a luxury surf-retail store, located directly below the restaurant.

“I had been talking to Tom for a while … I thought it would be interesting to take his brand and express it in a food concept,” says owner Mark Caragiulo.

Like his other restaurants, it’s all about the details. The Shore Diner will offer modern American diner food.

“It’s fresh, hip, clean and kind of Floridian, but not so tropical,” Caragiulo says. The restaurant will capitalize on an “envisionist Sarasota experience.”

Caragiulo says that there’s Mexican, Cuban, Italian and more on St. Armands Circle, but there’s nothing representative of “that indigenous experience,” he says.

The dishes served will be made using Sarasota-grown produce and other local food items; even the design shouts “Sarasota,” because the space was retrofitted using Sarasota School of Architectural Design components.

Raised kitchen garden beds are being built on the roof of the restaurant and will play host to baby lettuces, tomatoes, radishes, beets and “whatever grows that we can do ourselves,” says Caragiulo. The produce will be used in-house.

Though the exact opening day is to be determined, he says doors are expected to open sometime this week, as a soft opening.