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Archive for the 'North Pinellas County' Category

Autoway Dodge closes

There I was, driving down US19 this morning just south of Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard in Clearwater, when I noticed something missing. Something big. In fact, a whole major-league-sized auto dealership had simply evaporated.

Autoway Dodge took up a pretty good chunk of expensive commercial real estate on the southbound side of US19 in a pretty big neighborhood of car dealerships. Monday, Autoway Dodge was still there; today, just two days later, the place was empty.

If you own a Dodge automobile and you have had your service done at Autoway Dodge, don’t dispair; the franchise has been purchased by Dayton Andrews Chrysler, which is just a couple of miles away on the north side of Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard, just west of US19. Dayton Andrews says it will take over the sales and service from Autoway Dodge, but won’t be buying that big chunk of expensive real estate.

Dayton Andrews has plenty of Dodge experience — it owns a Dodge dealership down in St. Petersburg. In fact, even though I live in Palm Harbor (in North Pinellas County ), I bought a Dodge from them a few years ago and had good luck with it and them.

Autoway Dodge is the second Autoway dealership in Tampa Bay to close down in recent weeks. Autoway Chevrolet of Tampa Bay, over in Tampa, closed a week ago.

Tags: North Pinellas County

Bay Pines gets award

Bay Pines Veterans Hospital

 Here are some things that you may not know about Bay Pines, our local Veterans Administration medical center:

• It is the fourth-busiest veterans’ hospital in the country.
• It serves almost 100,000 veterans who live in Southwest Florida.Recently, Bay Pines won the the Robert W. Carey Performance of Excellence award, the highest award that can be won from the U.S. Office of Veterans Affairs.

Counters

Tags: pinellas county, veterans hospital

How things have changed

Here’s what I was telling buyers about three years ago:

“Do you like this house? If you do, you’d better act fast. Houses are staying on the market just a few days. The market is extremely overheated. Someone else will make a good offer and it will be gone.”

Here’s what I’m telling buyers now:

“Do you like this house? You may be able to get it at a really good price. In this market, many buyers are open to any reasonable offer — even unreasonable offers. It’s a great time to negotiate. So let’s negotiate.”

Tags: Market Trends, North Pinellas County

Good news about homeowners insurance

After months of steep increases in homeowners insurance rates, it looks as though Florida homeowners may finally be getting some relief.
State insurance regulators are saying that property insurance premiums will soon be cut around 25 percent. The rate decrease will apply to owners of single family homes as well as to owners of mobile homes and condos.
The actual amount of the decrease will vary from region to region within Florida, but in the Tampa Bay area the decrease should run between 18 and 35 percent. The biggest local decreases will be right here in Pinellas County.
Actually, the decreases will apply only to the part of the homeowners policy that covers wind damage. But that’s okay — the wind damage clause in coastal areas can be as much as 50 percent of ther total premium.
The insurance premum savings are a result of a state law enacted around the first of the year. The law allows insurance companies to buy more “re-insurance” from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, which is a state-backed agency.
Homeowners insurance rates went up steeply in Florida after the state experiences a couple of bad hurricane seasons. Insurance companies raised rates and also cancelled thousands of policies.
Those increases, along with rising property values and increase property taxes, had a chilling effect on home sales in Florida. But the lower insurance rates should serve as an important stimulant to home sales.
A good deal of credit for the lower rates belongs to Florida’s new governor, Charlie Crist, who took office in January. Crist made it plain that insurance rates needed to come down, and apparently the insurance companies and others were listening.

Counters

Tags: Homeowners insurance

Maybe doggie dining wasn’t such a great idea after all

Back a few months ago I posted a blog entry about a new Florida state law that allowed restaurants to let diners bring their dogs along. There were a number of restrictions — the local communities had to sign on to the bill, and the restaurants had to have outside dining facilities, for example — but a number of restaurants signed on.

One of the local restaurants was Moon Under Water in St. Petersburg. Plenty of Moon Under Water patrons started bringing their dogs along for lunch and dinner. (The dogs had to stay on the floor, but still…)

Well, things got a little out of hand at Moon Under Water. Lots and lots (and lots) of dog owners started bringing their dogs. People and their dogs lined up out on the sidewalk, waiting for tables. Dogs urinated (and worse) on the sidewalks. Some dog owners were outraged that their dogs had to stay on the floor, so arguments weren’t unusual.

So on Jan. 11, Moon Under Water changed its mind. No doggies allowed anymore.

Tags: dogs, pinellas county, restaurants

Where are the restaurants going?

If you visit this blog or my web site with any regularity, you know that I like restaurants — a lot. So when a new restaurant comes to town, it’s big news to me. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true — when a restaurant packs up and leaves, that’s news to me, as well.

Lately, it seems that we have been losing more restaurants than we have been gaining, and I’m not sure why.

The latest news is that Sam Seltzer’s Steak House on US19 north of Alderman Road has been closed. That restaurant has been open for about a year and a half, and we’ve eaten there a number of times. Honestly, we didn’t like it as much as the Sam Seltzer’s further south on US19, down south of Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard in Clearwater (there’s a review of that restaurant on my Restaurant Review page).

Sam Seltzer’s management says that the company felt that the Palm Harbor restaurant was taking business away from the Clearwater restaurant as well as the location up in Port Richey.

Another big surprise is that the Hooter’s restaurant, which was also on US19 north of Alderman, has closed down as well. No word from Hooter’s on what happened, but there is some speculation that it had to do with a rent increase. Hooter’s puts out a pretty good burger, but honestly it has never been one of my favorites and we almost never go there.

Not too long ago, the Fred Fleming’s barbecue restaurant on US19 at Nebraska closed. We miss that place, because we used to like to take our two granddaughters there. Another fairly recent closure was the Palm Harbor Ale House, on US19 just north of Tampa Road. That was a place for a fairly young crowd, kind of a sports bar atmosphere, and we didn’t go there very much either.

But not all the recent restaurant news has been negative. Dagwood Deli recently opened, and Wild Fish has been open on US19 south of Curlew for a number of months now. We haven’t tried Dagwood, but we’ve been to Wild Fish a couple of times. I’ll try to get a review of Wild Fish up on the web site in the near future.

Tags: North Pinellas County, restaurants

Boston Cooker restaurant

By the time we got over to the Boston Cooker stand, they were running out of food, but they still had some fine lobster bisque and some shrimp in a light batter that we enjoyed. Boston Cooker is located on the corner of Tampa Road and Forest Lakes in Oldsmar, directly behind Chili’s in the Forest Lakes Plaza. They fly in seafood every day from Boston — the food is fresh and very good.

Tags: restaurants

Cody’s Steak House

Cody’s was on hand with ribs and a number of other offerings. Cody’s is a very good steak house that offers good food at moderate prices — a great place for the family. There are a number of Cody’s locations in the Tampa Bay area, but the closest one to us is in Tarpon Springs, at 39870 U.S. 19 N.

Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants

Snapper’s Bar and Grille

Another of the restaurants taking part in the Taste of Palm Harbor was Snapper’s Bar & Grill. I had some spicy chicken wings and some great french fries.

Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants

Taste of Palm Harbor

I mentioned a day or two ago that the annual Taste of Palm Harbor event would be held today (Sunday). Bill and I stopped by, walked around, and sampled some of the food that was made available by a number of local participating restaurants. We had a great time and enjoyed the food.

The above picture looks up Florida Avenue, which usually gets blocked off to traffic whenever events are held in Old Palm Harbor.

Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants