Last month, Mad Beach Dive Bar opened its doors in — you guessed it — Madeira Beach. The new watering hole across from Frabotta's Italian Kitchen at 15045 Madeira Way features a nice selection of fine wine and local craft beer (think 7venth Sun Brewery, Pinellas Ale Works and JDub’s Brewing Company) in a laid-back setting.
Filling the cozy space are high-top tables and a long backlit bar with a neat, wave-like top and plenty of seating, alongside a stage for live music and a few TVs for sports fans. Mad Beach Dive Bar’s grand opening celebration is scheduled for Nov. 15.
• St. Petersburg residents will find Doc’s Louisiana Boil at 3210 Central Ave. — in case they haven’t already. Launched earlier this year, the restaurant is a casual place with a walk-up, fast-food-style order counter.
Menu items that one would likely expect are served up, including fried catfish, shrimp, all sorts of crab and lobster tail. But so are specialty dishes like frog legs with fries and garlic noodles. Non-seafood eaters can go with hush puppies, wings or house-made peach cobbler, too.
• More sushi hit Clearwater Beach on Aug. 29. Located at 288 Windward Passage, Sushi Tu offers a lovely, colorful array of signature rolls — among them the Clearwater (tempura shrimp, avocado, spicy tuna, tempura crunch, eel sauce, scallions masago) and Caterpillar (eel, cucumber, kanikama, avocado, eel sauce, spicy mayo, red tobiko).
Nigiri and sashimi, three kinds of poke, and starters such as veggie tempura and ginger salad round out the food offerings, while the beverage lineup includes beer, wine and sake.
• In Pinellas Park, Pho Ha Tien has taken over the former home of Jade Bistro, which closed after 10 years at 6139 Park Blvd. N. in late August, as of September. The newcomer’s large menu lists a wide variety of Vietnamese dishes, with everything from egg noodle soups and broken rice to shrimp stir-fry and fresh spring rolls in the spotlight.
• The Bay area got its first location from Pieology Pizzeria — a California-born, fast-casual pizza franchise — not too long ago. A seemingly unlimited amount of personal pies (and, OK, salads) are possible inside the Seminole restaurant at 11165 Park Blvd., as diners get to choose their own crusts, sauces and toppings.
Not sure what to pick? Luckily, a commonality between these types of create-your-own food-perations is that signature pizza and salad builds are also available. In Pieology’s case, there are options like Butcher's Choice (pepperoni, sausage, meatball, mozzarella, house red sauce, olive oil blend) and Zesty Artichoke (roasted red peppers, marinated artichokes, red onion, mozzarella, Parmesan, garlic herb butter blend, fresh basil).
This article appears in Nov 9-16, 2017.