{"id":34643,"date":"2023-08-15T11:57:42","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T15:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=34643"},"modified":"2023-08-15T11:57:49","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T15:57:49","slug":"food-beer-prepares-to-open-lakeland-restaurant-on-aug-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/08\/15\/food-beer-prepares-to-open-lakeland-restaurant-on-aug-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Food + Beer prepares to open Lakeland restaurant on Aug. 21"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Food + Beer<\/a> is preparing to open its Lakeland restaurant next week off South Florida Avenue. Lakeland’s Merchants Walk at 3615 S. Florida Avenue, Ste 1350.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its name may be simple, but it hopes to prove its food is anything but.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Owners Casey Daniels and Mike Whalen are expanding their Sarasota-based sports bar into a sixth location in Lakeland’s Merchants Walk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re a sports bar in a lot of ways, but not in the frozen food kind of way,” Whalen said. “We have a lot of unique dining options and everything is made from scratch.”<\/p>\n\n\n

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Food + Beer will have a seasonal aspect to its menu with specialty dishes and cocktails that rotate four times a year, Whalen said. It will have 16 beers on tap, a full wine list, and a liquor license to serve up cocktails people have come to expect at weekend brunches. Vegetarian and vegan options are also available, including the plant-based Impossible Burger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“That’s the beauty of a sports bar, we can be a sports bar when it’s convenient,” Whalen said. “We are the neighborhood spot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Football fans will find 38 flat-screen TVs inside the restaurant to watch the big game. Whalen said the focus shifts to taco and tequila Tuesdays before trivia contests take over on Wednesday nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restaurant will take over the storefront briefly occupied by HomeCourt, a restaurant opened by NBA Hall-of-Famer Tracy McGrady. It opened in February 2021 during the COVID pandemic and shut down 11 months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food + Beer will open at 4 p.m. Aug. 21 serving dinner on the first day. The restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. 7 days a week to start, according to Whalen, with changes possible over time. It hopes to attract a late-night crowd with an arcade featuring Skee-ball, basketball and driving games. Sunday brunches will kick off at 10 a.m. and feature bottomless, build-your-own mimosas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guests will have the option for outdoor seating along the storefront screened off by planters. There may be a small outdoor lounge section, Whalen said, as the area was in the process of being set up and designed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Food + Beer is preparing to open its Lakeland restaurant next week off South Florida Avenue. Lakeland’s Merchants Walk at 3615 S. Florida Avenue, Ste 1350. Its name may be… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[5688],"class_list":["post-34643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-food-beer-prepares-to-open-lakeland-restaurant-on-aug-21"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}