Doc’s Streetside Grille has closed, an announcement that will come as a surprise only to anyone else who has been holding an unpaid invoice from the business. Also not surprising: The owners of the building on South Orange Avenue, which is across the street from Orlando Health and who upper floors are largely occupied by medical offices, are once again trotting out plans to convert the property into a hotel. I first wrote about that in the Orlando Sentinel in June, 2008. Although this time the plans call for about 100 fewer rooms — 54, according to the barebones website for the project, tentatively called the Delaney Hotel; or the Delaney Park Hotel — and will include a restaurant. Bungalower quoted an executive with the project as saying the restaurant would be “friendly” and feature “everyone’s favorite dishes from around the globe,” so I’m glad they’ve settled on a concept that can work. The executive also said the project should be finished in 12 to 14 months, which I think is just adorable. That sounds like a good time frame to complete the permitting process.
Better Than Sex has opened in the former Wolfie’s Pizzamia. It’s a dessert restaurant, and I have to confess I am not looking forward to reviewing it because doing so will require one to comment on one’s own sex life. If you get there before I do, please, practice safe pastries.
Speaking of Wolfie’s Pizzamia, the former chef there, Jason Schofield, says his new restaurant, Maddey’s Craft & Cru, should open in the Church Street Station building at the end of March, “if permits permit.”
Speaking of Church Street Station, have you wondered what’s going on with Ferg’s Depot, the Orlando outpost of a St. Petersburg sports bar? It announced an opening of May 16 — 2015. According to my new calendar, that was last year. A woman who answered the phone at the St. Pete number said, “We have no information on that,” and that it was not expected to open any time soon. Maybe they should have planned a hotel there.
And just to bring all of this back around, the space that Ferg’s Depot is to occupy at one time was planned to become a seafood restaurant owned by Neil Connolly, the original executive chef at Doc’s (when it was just called Doc’s). Connolly, who died in 2013, told me way back then, in 2008, that it would be a nice complement for another project that was planned to be built just behind the station — a boutique hotel.
Apparently that one is still in the permitting phase.
