The historic Dunedin property at 453 Edgewater Drive has undergone its fair share of change. At one time, the building overlooking St. Joseph Sound served as a hotel, the first radio station in Pinellas County, a couple of schools (including a Christian college) and an empty shell, according to Mainsail Lodging & Development President Joe Collier.
But Collier’s Tampa-based hospitality company is restoring the structure to its former glory, and paying homage its musical legacy, as Fenway Hotel — with a big emphasis on food and beverage. Mainsail, after all, is responsible for the genesis of Tampa’s Epicurean Hotel, a playground for food-obsessed residents and out-of-towners across the street from Bern’s Steak House in SoHo.
“If you’re gonna run an 82-unit boutique hotel, you’ve gotta do well in food and beverage,” Collier said Wednesday during a hard-hat media tour of the Fenway. “Food and beverage is a big part of who we are, and you’ve gotta have a restaurant space that the locals wanna come to.”
Before we dig into details on the edible highlights, however, first things first: The new Fenway — originally opened as a Jazz Age icon in 1927 — is a collaboration between Mainsail and the Taoist Tai Chi Society of the USA, headquartered behind the hotel. It’s also part of the Autograph Collection, Marriott International’s amalgam of boutique properties around the globe.
There are 40 or so days left in the construction phase, and the hotel is shooting for a premiere in late October.
Visitors should expect a look and feel that mixes yesteryear with modern touches, and nifty ideas Mainsail plans to carry over from the Epicurean. Furthering the company’s M.O. of hooking both hotel guests and local residents with exciting food and beverage options, those ideas include Hi-Fi, the Fenway’s covered rooftop bar CL first wrote about in March, as well as the “artisan pantry” in each room with interesting items you’re likely to find in a gourmet market, rather than a convenience store.
Oh, and, you know, just a chef-driven restaurant that’s coming to life with help from Chad Johnson, executive chef of the Epicurean and two-time James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: South. Totally not a big deal or anything.
Johnson, who Mainsail has put in a consulting role to design all of its kitchens and eateries going forward, lends his expertise to the development of HEW Parlor & Chophouse, participating in the restaurant’s aesthetic design (a fresh take on the classic chophouse with a Scottish accent) and name choice (a nod to the butchering term “hew,” meaning to separate with a cleaver). What’s more, he’s the person who discovered H.E.W. are the initials of the hotel’s OG architect, Herman Everett Wendell.
“In terms of the restaurant theme, it’s gonna be really unlike anything over here on this side [of the bay]. We’re excited to kind of bring that restaurant element… I don’t know how many of you have said, ‘Oh, let’s go to the Marriott hotel for dinner.’ Nobody really has done that historically over the last 20 years — that kind of has declined. We’ve turned that upside down,” Collier said.
Mainsail Lodging & Development Vice President Tom Haines, who joined the company as opening general manager for the Epicurean, described the restaurant simply: “A nod back to the era of chophouses and parlors, but presented in a more contemporary way.”
What about the price point? As Haines put it, the menu is in line with what other restaurants, not hotels, are doing in the Dunedin market.
Providing additional access to the pool deck (like the Epicurean, the pool will be open to the public on some level), HEW will feature an open kitchen with a 22-seat chef’s bar, where patrons share up-close-and-personal interactions with the culinary staff, alongside a dining room showcasing 86-plus seats inside and out on the patio. While two private dining areas function as meeting or event spaces throughout the week, they’ll become an extension of the restaurant on weekends.
“We fully anticipate this pool deck and the restaurant on the weekends to become a destination for not just the hotel guests — for people of the region,” Haines said. “So you’ll be able to come in and have brunch — we’ll open up the doors, the music will waft in from the pool deck and out onto the lobby — and then when you’re done, you can go to the rooftop bar, Hi-Fi, and have an after-brunch cocktail, or go out onto the lawn and experience the water.”
HEW’s parlor component is the lobby bar, a mixology-forward experience that’s sort of a quasi-whiskey bar and different from the rooftop, which will highlight more traditional offerings.
Yet that doesn’t make Hi-Fi — inspired by the surrounding Spanish colonial architecture with seating and standing room for around 100 — any less special. Up there, patrons can enjoy cocktails, a menu of small plates separate from HEW and live local tunes while taking in views of Honeymoon and Caladesi islands.
“The view speaks for itself,” Collier quipped.
This article appears in Jul 5-12, 2018.