Renovations at Longboat's Mar Vista to debut Feb. 11

Renovations at the Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant & Pub are expected to be completed on Feb. 11, but diners are going to have to wait until next year for The Buccaneer on Gulf of Mexico Drive to open.

Mar Vista has been undergoing a $2 million renovation that includes a state-of-the-art kitchen, second-story office space and storage, more outdoor seating, a new entrance, fireplace and covered walkway.

“We’ve been going gangbusters,” said owner Ed Chiles, adding the restaurant is also contracted a farm in Tennessee to raise a portion of the meat he serves at his restaurants. “Steers and pigs.”

For three years, the Longbeach restaurant has been undergoing renovations to its building, which dates back to 1915. The venue, which offers 14 boat slips, has remained open during the project.

The restaurant will now have 169 seats, Chiles said.

“We needed to do this project in phases,” he said.

Through the years, the building, at 760 Broadway St., has served as a fish camp — selling bait, tackle and beer — and apartments before being transformed to a restaurant.

The Chiles Restaurant Group acquired the restaurant in the 1980s. 

Chiles bought The Beach House in Bradenton Beach in 1993 and The Sandbar Restaurant in Anna Maria in 1979. 

Chiles also owns The Studio at Gulf and Pine, a gallery and event facility on Anna Maria Island.

Buccaneer’s plans

Not as far along is The Buccaneer restaurant planned for the former Pattigeorge’s site at 4120 Gulf of Mexico Drive.

The restaurant will not open this year, said Michael Kilgore, chief marketing officer for the Columbia Restaurant Group, which purchased the property in June 2016 for $2 million. 

It also acquired the adjacent Harbour Square office building. Pattigeorge’s was torn down in spring 2018. 

“My parents’ favorite restaurant, besides the Columbia, was The Buccaneer Inn on Longboat Key,” said Richard Gonzmart, the fourth generation “caretaker” of the family restaurant group, which owns the Columbia in St. Armands, as well as a dozen other restaurants in Florida.

“My goal and my dream is to make this new restaurant an architectural gem and to pay homage to some of that restaurant’s beloved menu items, such as oysters and char-grilled prime rib, as well as to add our own distinctive touches,” Gonzmart said in a statement when the purchase was announced.

Kilgore said the restaurant is still in the process of being designed, and it is still too early to say how many diners it will be able to accommodate. It will also have boat slips.

“It (the restaurant) will be inspired by the beloved original, but also it will be filtered through our own ideas, designs and menus,” Kilgore said in an email.

“This is such a labor of love for Richard Gonzmart that he’s taking special care on every detail,” said Kilgore, adding there will be food tastings for the Longboat Key community “far in advance” of the Buccaneer’s opening.

The Buccaneer Inn, which was  located at Gulf of Mexico Drive and Dream Island Road originally, was opened in 1957 by Herb Field and remained a fixture on Longboat Key until it closed in 2001.