New restaurant sought for Longboat Key

A new restaurant might be coming to Longboat Key.

The Planning, Zoning and Building Department received an application for site plan review June 24 that reveals property owners are seeking to turn the site of the former Longboat Key Animal Clinic at 5530 Gulf of Mexico Drive into a 74-seat restaurant.

Property owners Dr. David Smith and Jo Ellen Baxter-Smith, which have owned the property since the early 1980s, closed the clinic in 1996 and have reached an agreement with Paul and Cara Russo to purchase the property and convert the two concrete block yellow buildings on site into an eatery.

If approved, the restaurant will sit just south of Euphemia Haye on the other side of Gulf Bay Road.

For more information, pick up a copy of Wednesday's Longboat Observer.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].