Bram Fowler will be serving time at the Old Jailhouse in Sanford. He’ll also be serving what he describes as Sunbelt Smile Cuisine.
Fowler, formerly of Journeys restaurant in Longwood and ever so briefly Park Plaza Gardens in Winter Park, will be the chef and operations manager for The Old Jailhouse, a restaurant currently under renovations in the city’s former clink. “We’re just building it out now,” said Fowler by phone, “we just got our permits a couple of weeks ago.”
The building, which dates back to 1890, was originally a livery. “We’re actually digging up the ground right now and we’ve found a couple of horseshoes,” he said.
The restaurant, which will be owned by Tony and Maria Sirica and their son Alex, will feature a menu of Sunbelt Smile Cuisine. “If you drew a line from California to Carolina,” explained Fowler, “the line would be a smile.” The menu will offer foods from below the smile, or basically Southern America influenced. Fowler said they are looking to a late summer opening. That might depend on what else is dug up.
The only bars in the new place will be full liquor.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to a fire at the jail in 1975; that fire was in a different jail in Seminole County.
