Seasonal upswing back to 'normal' on Longboat Key

As spring break approaches, Longboat Key business owners are optimistic that business will continue to ramp up.

By S.T. Cardinal
| 5:00 a.m. March 4, 2026

Diners sit outside at Lazy Lobster. Owner Michael Garey said business really starts to ramp up in February before March, April and May, the busiest months of the year for the restaurant.

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After a 2025 dominated by an islandwide rebuild from hurricanes that struck the fall before, busy season seems to be back to normal in 2026.

“Now, since most of the contractors are finished with their jobs or coming close to the end or just finishing up, we’re coming back to normal,” said Longboat Key Club and Resort Managing Director Rick Konsavage. “We are very optimistic coming up this year. It’s not going to be a banner year, but it’ll be slightly above last year.”

Konsavage has been in the hospitality business for decades, including 39 years with Ocean Properties with hotels and resorts across the Southeast and Florida. He’s been with the Longboat Key Club for seven years. There haven’t been many “typical” years in that time.

In 2020, a worldwide pandemic reduced travel nationwide, and Longboat Key businesses were shuttered for months. In 2021, pent up demand led to a record year for Longboat businesses. It is remembered by both Konsavage and Lazy Lobster owner Michael Garey as a banner year.

“It hasn’t been normal in a while,” Garey said. “Because of COVID, 2020 wasn’t normal; 2021 was fantastic, but it wasn’t normal because we were the only state open. So all of a sudden we had a full house in August and September. We’ll probably never see that again.”

Last year, Longboat Key continued to rebuild after back-to-back hurricanes in fall 2024. Garey said this year so far has been a “nice bounce back” from 2025 when Lazy Lobster saw a 12.5% drop in business. The only good thing about business last year, Garey said, is that it wasn’t as bad as he predicted.

“Being down that much hurt,” Garey said. “It wasn’t pleasant to go through, but it was better than I was thinking it was going to be.”

There’s obviously not an official start date for tourist season, but there is a time it begins to ramp up. Garey opens Lazy Lobster only for dinner during the summer months, typically May to October but depending on business. When seasonal residents and tourists begin to flock back, Lazy Lobster opens for lunch as well.

Longboat a popular stop for tourists visiting Sarasota County

According to quarterly visitor data by Visit Sarasota County, 347,300 people visited the Sarasota area in the first three months of 2024, spending an estimated $560.2 million.

The next year, despite the damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in fall 2024, the first three months of 2025 saw a similar number of visitors: 340,500.

Of those hundreds of thousands of visitors, many make their way to Longboat Key. According to Visit Sarasota data, Longboat Key is the fifth most popular destination in Sarasota, with downtown Sarasota leading the way. Siesta Key, St. Armands Circle and Lido Key are second, third and fourth, respectively. The following are the percentage of visitors who visited and the percentage of those who stayed on the Sarasota County half of Longboat Key.

2024: Downtown Sarasota was the most popular place destination for visitors with 49% of visitors staying downtown and 71% visiting. Longboat Key was visited by 34% of visitors, with 6% staying on the island.

2025: Downtown Sarasota once again drew the most visitors, with 52% staying downtown and 67% visiting. Longboat Key saw a higher share of visitors than the previous year, 36%, and 6% stayed on the island like the previous year.

November and December 2025 showed decreased visitors from the year before. There were 82,900 visitors countywide in November, a 12.5% decrease from 2024. In December, there were 77,800 visitors, a 13.1% decrease from 2024.

Data for 2026 has not been compiled yet, with January and February numbers expected to be available in early March.

Typically, season begins to pick up in January and ramps up even more in February and March. According to hotel occupancy data from Visit Sarasota, countywide occupancy in 2024 jumped from 68% in January to 82% in February. In 2025, January occupancy was 69%, increasing to 84% in February.

Konsavage is hopeful that March, typically the peak of season, will be strong for Longboat businesses after a slower (and colder) than typical January.

“It depends on the week. It depends on the weather. It’s not fun to be on the beach when it’s 43 degrees,” he said. “It actually helps us when it’s cold up north and it’s snowy. I think people are going to be so fed up with the snow up north that as soon as they get the chance they’ll come down. I think March is going to be a very strong month. I anticipate March being one of the stronger Marches that we’ve had because I think the pent up demand of getting out of the weather is really going to make a difference. When they see 80 degrees in Sarasota, they’re going to say that’s where I want to be.”

Much of March’s traffic comes from spring breakers. But the spring break clientele on Longboat Key isn’t the same as Daytona Beach or Panama City Beach. Longboat’s clientele aren’t partying college students, but families.

“Our market is a little different. We’re talking about families that have kids in middle school or lower levels and they want to take them to vacation,” Konsavage said. “We don’t cater to the typical spring break market. We cater to the families, the parents that are bringing their children to have a nice, relaxing beach vacation.”

author

S.T. Cardinal

S.T. "Tommy" Cardinal is the Longboat Key news reporter. The Sarasota native earned a degree from the University of Central Florida in Orlando with a minor in environmental studies. In Central Florida, Cardinal worked for a monthly newspaper covering downtown Orlando and College Park. He then worked for a weekly newspaper in coastal South Carolina where he earned South Carolina Press Association awards for his local government news coverage and photography.