Pattigeorge’s sells for $2 million

The sale price for Pattigeorge’s has been revealed, and its more than double the assessed value of the iconic Longboat Key restaurant.

The Columbia Restaurant Group bought the property for $1.96 million this week, laying the groundwork for restaurateur Richard Gonzmart’s vision for the restaurant. Tommy Klauber, who owns Polo Grill and Bar, had owned PG’s with his family since 1997.

Klauber said he and his wife, Jaymie Klauber, decided to sell after the restaurant’s ownership became enmeshed with his father’s legal entanglements with Colony. Once that was resolved, Klauber said, he and Jaymie took on new partners. But when the group evaluated the condition of the restaurant’s structure and what it would take to renovate, they decided to sell.

With whatever restaurant Gonzmart develops on that mid-Key Bayfront site, “It will be one of a kind. It won’t be anything we do now,” he said Tuesday as he awaited word that his company’s purchase of Pattigeorge’s was completed.

“I believe in being a good neighbor. I don’t envision this being a monstrosity,” he added.

But here is what it will have: “It’s going to be Florida food. Real food that everyone will enjoy,” Gonzmart said. “I don’t want to give away what I’m going to do. But there will be great seafood and great hormone-free beef from Myakka City” — a reference to the beef his company buys from Jim and Renee Strickland, owners of the Strickland Ranch and Gonzmart family friends for three generations.

Gonzmart has a lot of ideas swirling — such as building a glass-floored structure over the boat ramp next to the existing building. He envisions installing sea lights under water so they attract fish while guests eat, drink and watch the fish. “I’m just fascinated by fish,” Gonzmart said.

Expect the new restaurant to be one-story, without the live-in apartment upstairs where Klauber and Pattigeorge’s founders, Patti and George Neofotis, lived when they owned and operated the restaurant. And expect an outdoor dining deck — subject, of course, to town approval.

The final version of what is to come, Gonzmart said, will depend to a large degree on his team of architects and engineers and, as always, on what the town of Longboat Key will permit.

“My task now is to meet with the architect next week,” Gonzmart said. He said he expects redevelopment to take at least a year and a half.