Popular Sarasota plant-based coffee house gets new owner: Founder's son

Tyler Kirby started working at Simon's Coffee House on South Tamiami Trail the day he graduated from Sarasota Military Academy in 2007, quickly rising through the ranks to become head chef. 

At some point, however, he still felt he wanted more than the coffee shop — which his father Simon Kirby founded in 1991. 

Yet after a two-year search, he and his wife Maya say they've found where they were meant to be all along: Back at Simon's, a colorful restaurant popular with snowbirds, locals and businesspeople in the busy corridor.