Bradenton restaurant to open second spot, in south Sarasota County

A restaurant that has been in Bradenton for more than two years is expanding to Sarasota County. The owners of Five Nine Grill & Tavern at 5718 Cortez Road W. plan to open an Osprey location in the coming months. The new eatery will be located in Blackburn Point Plaza, where Indian restaurant Bay Leaf used to be, at 1092 S. Tamiami Trail.

Mike DeGirolamo, one of the owners of Five Nine Grill & Tavern, says he plans on making some changes to the 3,000-square-foot space. It will seat 120 when the restaurant opens, which he says will likely be in June. He is waiting for booths and front-of-house items that have been ordered to arrive and says most of the construction will center around redoing the bar. 

Aside from that, DeGirolamo says: “We’re not doing anything structurally to the property other than reimagining the seating inside."

While he describes Five Nine Grill & Tavern as a “casual restaurant,” he says it has a nice atmosphere too. It will have nine TVs but is not a sports bar, he notes. “We’re a new American [restaurant] with a comfort food swing on it."

Five Nine Grill & Tavern is a “90% scratch kitchen,” he says. The menu includes burgers, wings, steak, handhelds like Baja shrimp tacos and a French dip, as well as flatbreads, seafood, salads, other entrees and lighter options.

“I would say it’s a comfort food diner kind of atmosphere,” says DeGirolamo, who notes he has been in the restaurant business for 35 years. “We do a lot of classic cocktails. We have a rotating menu that switches for the holidays and months.” For example, he says, the restaurant had corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day. It also offers daily specials, like meatloaf on Monday, 8 oz. sirloin on Thursday and fish and chips on Friday, priced under $15.

Food at both locations will be the same, with one change: brunch. 

“Our concept [in Osprey] is going to evolve to a brunch, lunch and dinner concept,” DeGirolamo says. The restaurant may open around 9 or 9:30 a.m. to serve brunch seven days a week. The owners plan to hire about 60 staff, compared with 35 employees at the Bradenton location, which spans 2,400 square feet and has 120 seats.

The owners of Five Nine Grill & Tavern — who include DeGirolamo, his wife, Holly, and partner, Quincy Watkins — settled on the new location because “there’s a lot going on out there in Osprey, Nokomis, Venice, South Sarasota,” DeGirolamo says. “It seems to be a good spot, and it just seems like it would be a really good fit for our clientele.”

Next, the goal is to get a liquor license for the Osprey location. And in the future, Five Nine Grill & Tavern may expand further.

“We’re always looking,” DeGirolamo says. Osprey is as far south as the owners plan to go. They probably won’t expand further north, but, he adds: “If there was a spot in Sun City, that might interest us. [Otherwise] we’ll fill in between the two stores.”