Beach Bistro reopened on Friday, Sept. 25, almost two years to the day after storm surge from Hurricane Helene closed the restaurant at 6600 Gulf Drive in Holmes Beach, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. The Bistro is serving dinner daily from 4 to 10 p.m., and it is not quite the same room that closed in 2024.
That makes it the first of the island's long-closed waterfront restaurants to finish. The places that came back within weeks of the 2024 storms were mostly repaired and reopened as they had been. The places still missing two years later had to be rebuilt from the interior or from the pilings up, and so far each one is returning in a different form. Beach Bistro has a new interior. Rod & Reel moved to land. The Anna Maria City Pier is getting a bigger operation at the end of the T than it had before.
The fast reopenings were cleanups
The island's first restaurant recoveries came quickly. Fox 13 reported that the Beach House Waterfront Restaurant in Bradenton Beach reopened six weeks after Helene and Milton. The storms had left nearly four feet of sand across the property and water inside the building. The Waterfront Restaurant announced its reopening on Dec. 3, 2024, after what it called extensive repairs. By May 2025, WWSB reported that Sandbar's Beachside Bites was open, and that the restoration had brought building renovations, menu additions, an ice cream shop and an outdoor walk-up window.
Repairs like those took weeks or months, while a new kitchen or a new pier has taken years. Here is how the island's waterfront restaurants stand as of mid-October 2026, based on the most recent reporting available.
| Spot | Location | What it took | Status in the latest reporting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beach House Waterfront Restaurant | Bradenton Beach | Sand and water removed, repairs | Reopened six weeks after the storms |
| The Waterfront Restaurant | Anna Maria | Extensive repairs | Reopened Dec. 3, 2024 |
| Sandbar's Beachside Bites | Anna Maria | Renovations, new walk-up window and ice cream shop | Reported open by May 2025 |
| Beach Bistro | 6600 Gulf Drive, Holmes Beach | Full interior and kitchen rebuild | Reopened Sept. 25, 2026 |
| Rod & Reel | Temporary site at 3246 East Bay Drive, Holmes Beach | Original pier destroyed | Land-based restaurant opened Nov. 21, 2025; pier rebuild still in permitting as of November 2025 |
| Anna Maria City Pier and PIERadise | City Pier T-end, Anna Maria | Pier rebuild plus new lease | City target of November 2026; August reports said only "this fall" |
| Anna Maria Oyster Bar | Bridge Street Pier, Bradenton Beach | Restoration under a city-approved revised layout | Rebuild permit was moving forward in July 2025; no reopening date reported |
Beach Bistro kept the wood paneling and changed nearly everything else
Steven Sipos, the restaurant's manager, told the Herald-Tribune that "the entire interior of the restaurant was affected" by the 2024 hurricanes and that the full interior and the kitchen had to be rebuilt. That is the reason for the two-year gap. The Bistro needed far more than a cleanup.
The designers kept the signature wood-paneled feel and added white marble, brass and antique glass mirrors throughout. The restoration also put in what Sipos described as the "highest-rated" impact windows and doors. Longtime regulars will find the cottage on the sand they remember. The finishes and the glass facing the Gulf are new, and the openings were built for the storms that closed the place.
The kitchen changed as well. The Bistro brought in an award-winning, classically trained consultant chef from San Diego to restore the original and add more fresh options. The classics are back:
- Lobstercargots
- Fresh grouper with a coconut and cashew crust
- The bouillabaisse, with lobster tails poached to order, jumbo shrimp, market fish, shellfish and octopus
- Prime filet mignon, double lamb chop and duck confit, plus vegetarian options
The new dishes focus "more intently on whole food ingredients," and Sipos said almost every item is now made in-house from scratch. According to the restaurant, its shrimp come only from the Gulf, and its line-caught fish comes from suppliers the management has worked with for years.
The staff is a mix of old and new. Sipos told the paper that six to eight long-term employees came back and more than 10 new hires joined them, and that management is still hiring for the kitchen and the front of the house. Expect a few familiar faces in a room that is still filling out its team during its first season back.
There is a lot of history behind the reopening. Sean Murphy and Susan Timmins founded Beach Bistro in 1985. A local ownership group bought it in early 2022. The restaurant is in Florida Trend's Golden Spoon Hall of Fame. The restaurant's own reopening message on social media summed up what was missing: "beautiful food, a table beside the Gulf, and the sunset we've all missed."
Rod & Reel came back by moving off the water
Rod & Reel shows the same pattern from a different direction. The original pier and restaurant in Anna Maria were destroyed, and owner Oliver Lemke has said he hopes to rebuild. In September 2025 the Anna Maria Island Sun listed it among the island's piers that were still closed, with no completion date. In November 2025, the Sun reported that permitting was still underway with an engineering and permitting consultant. That report gave no construction start or finish date, and no later timeline has turned up in the news since.
The restaurant didn't wait for the pier. A temporary, land-based Rod & Reel opened Nov. 21, 2025, at 3246 East Bay Drive in Holmes Beach, the Sun reported. Its menu is essentially the same as the pier restaurant's, and the dining room displays boards, signage and storm debris recovered from the old pier. That reporting is from late 2025. Before planning a breakfast there, check the restaurant's current hours directly, because no 2026 news coverage has confirmed its schedule.
The City Pier is coming back bigger at the T-end
The Anna Maria City Pier is the largest of the slow reopenings, and it looks like the biggest change. In June 2026 the city approved a five-year lease with GSM Partners, whose operation is called PIERadise, the Anna Maria Island Sun reported. The operation is planned for both T-end buildings, including the larger space that once housed Mote Marine, with an open-air covered bar and dining area.
The terms reported so far describe the T-end like this:
- Breakfast, lunch and dinner, with beer and wine, on a menu that was still in development as of June
- Bait and tackle for sale, with fishing around the T-end still allowed
- Public access and business hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week
- Most T-end seating open to the public without a purchase, except bar seats
- Separate bar and kitchen areas and daily local music, according to WWSB's coverage of the lease
The opening date is still unsettled. The city's June 11 commission minutes list a November 2026 completion target, weather permitting. The most recent reports, from WWSB on Aug. 24 and WFLA on Aug. 26, said only that the pier was expected to reopen this fall. Neither gave a firm day. In WFLA's report, the owners of Two Scoops Ice Cream and Cool Beans talked about what the pier means for business at the north end. For now, November is a target, not an opening date.
Bridge Street is still the open question
At the south end, the Anna Maria Oyster Bar on the Bridge Street Pier in Bradenton Beach is the restaurant with the least public detail. In July 2025, Pulse of Manatee reported that its storm restoration was nearing completion and that the city had approved a revised layout, which let the restaurant finalize its rebuild permit. No news coverage since then has reported a reopening date. A revised layout points the same way as the others, toward a pier restaurant that comes back somewhat different from the one that closed.
Taken together, Beach Bistro's return sets the pattern for the restaurants still waiting. It reopened two years after the storms with a rebuilt kitchen, new finishes, impact-rated glass and a menu that keeps its classics while adding more from scratch. Rod & Reel is serving its pier menu on land at East Bay Drive. The City Pier's T-end is set to run under one operator across two buildings, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Of Anna Maria Island's three landmark spots on or over the water, the Bistro is the only one serving right now, from 4 to 10 p.m. every night at 6600 Gulf Drive.
The Meyer Team is keeping an eye on the City Pier and Bridge Street openings this season, and we're glad to share what we're seeing on the ground. If you're weighing a seasonal home within walking distance of the Bistro or the City Pier, we'd be happy to talk through it.
