Inflation-walloped restaurant owner: 'I don’t want to be the guy serving $43 steaks.'

Local restaurant owners Michael Garey and Bob Fracalossy have latched onto a novel way to handle the double whammy of inflation and high food costs: The duo let go of lobster at one of their locations. 

In doing so, Garey and Fracalossy turned the Sarasota Lazy Lobster — what was one of two in the area; the other is on Longboat Key — into a Kacey’s Seafood. The new Kacey's, on Lockwood Ridge Road, joins the original Kacey's location on Fruitville Road. It opened May 11 after a three-week conversion. 

Garey, in an interview with the Longboat Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer, doesn't mince words about the switch: Kacey’s Seafood offers a more price-accessible menu than Lazy Lobster was becoming. Seafood remains on the menu, but the price points are lower, with a smaller variety of entrees and fewer seafood options.