Anna Maria Oyster Bar founder to slow down, names next CEO

The Spirit of Manatee Awards hosted by the Manatee Community Foundation in March was a celebration of volunteers, philanthropists and community-minded business leaders. One highlight was John and Amanda Horne, owners of Oysters Rock Hospitality, with six Anna Maria Oyster Bar locations in the Manatee-Sarasota market, winning the Mary E. Parker Lifetime Spirit Award. 

A joke making the rounds at the luncheon, attended by some 500 people at the Bradenton Area Convention Center, was that John Horne was wearing pants. (Horne famously wears khaki shorts and colorful Hawaiian button-down shirts to nearly every event.) At the podium after the award was announced, Horne said he once promised his wife if they ever won the lifetime spirit award he would don pants.