Pass-a-Grille's Newest Tables Are Upstairs, Facing the Water

Two addresses on Pass-a-Grille Way sit four numbers apart. At 800, the Seahorse is serving omelets and shrimp and grits again in a ground-floor room that was gutted down to the studs after Helene and Milton. At 804, St. Pete Beach commissioners approved a restaurant in January that will seat diners on its second and third floors, with outdoor decks facing the Pass-a-Grille Channel. A few blocks away on Eighth Avenue, the newest dining room in the historic district opened on October 8 with a reservation-only rooftop terrace.

Two years after the storms, Pass-a-Grille's dining scene is coming back on two levels. The old favorites have reopened at street level, much as they were. Almost all of the newly added seating is upstairs.

The Dewey's old room, with a roof deck above it

The building at 109 Eighth Ave. housed The Dewey, a modern beach-cuisine restaurant from the team behind Tampa's Mise en Place. It opened in 2019 with the Berkeley Beach Club and closed after hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, according to the Tampa Bay Times report on its successor.

That successor is Moon by Malio's, a coastal Mediterranean seafood restaurant from Derek and Jen Iavarone, who also own Malio's Beach House in St. Pete Beach and Malio's Prime Steakhouse in downtown Tampa. Jen Iavarone told the Times that Moon is "Malio's little sister," a way to show the family's heritage and how they eat at home.

The roof is what sets it apart from the rest of the street. The terrace looks west over the Gulf and east over the Pass-a-Grille Channel, so both water views are in reach from one spot. For now, only guests with reservations can go up to the rooftop. The owners plan to hold full moon parties there, and the name comes from the family: the Iavarones' daughter has Moon as her middle name.

Here's what the Times reported on the opening menu:

• Seasonal seafood towers you can customize, with local catch when it's available and an optional caviar service
• Handmade pastas such as tagliolini and ravioli, plus a prime beef bolognese topped with prime filet
• Snapper Scottato al Limone with artichokes, capers, fennel and lemon brodo
• Derek Iavarone's mother's biscotti with pistachio gelato for dessert
• A wine list that leans toward the Mediterranean, alongside some California bottles, plus Seedlip nonalcoholic spirits

Corrie Dietrich, who was executive chef at Oakland's Restaurant and Marina in the Hamptons, runs the kitchens for all the Malio's restaurants. Dina Kuchkuda is Moon's sommelier. At 3,500 square feet, Moon is the smallest of the group's three restaurants, with about 200 seats across three areas. It shares a building with the Berkeley Beach Club but is not technically part of it. Club guests get some priority access.

The family has a long history in Tampa dining. Derek's father, Malio Iavarone, opened the first Malio's on South Dale Mabry Highway in 1969, and Derek's grandfather opened Carmine's in Tampa in the late 1940s. The Dewey's ground-floor dining room is still in use. Moon's bigger change to Eighth Avenue is the roof above it.

At 800 Pass-a-Grille Way, the Seahorse came back as it was

The Seahorse has served Pass-a-Grille since 1938. It started as a drive-in in the late 1930s and was popular with soldiers stationed nearby during World War II. It closed in late 2024 after several feet of flood damage from the two hurricanes, was fully gutted and renovated, and St. Pete Rising reported that it served its first customers in more than a year this past winter. A ribbon cutting was set for Friday, February 6.

"We had mostly locals coming in, residents from the area," owner Anayeri Gomez told St. Pete Rising about the first day back.

The renovation didn't change the menu. Breakfast is still omelets, breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, shrimp and grits, biscuits and gravy and French toast. Lunch still includes seafood platters, burgers, black beans and rice, and Cuban-style grilled chicken. The Seahorse is the clearest example of the street-level half of the recovery: the same address, the same kind of food, in a rebuilt room.

Four doors down, a restaurant approved for the second and third floors

The lot at 804 Pass-a-Grille Way is the next part of the story. In January, St. Pete Beach commissioners approved a conditional-use permit for developer John Dashiell's 159-seat restaurant, with open-deck dining on the second and third floors overlooking the channel, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Here's how the seats are split between the two floors, from the floor plan the Times described:

City planning staff saw the upstairs dining as a good fit for the Eighth Avenue district. The Times quoted their report:

"Second- and third-level outdoor dining is modest in scale, architecturally integrated, and oriented toward the Pass-a-Grille Channel, reinforcing the coastal character and mixed-use pattern of the CRD-EA."

Some of the permit's conditions will shape what a night there is like. The permit stays with the property, so any future owner has to follow it, and one condition bans live outdoor music. District commissioner Jon Maldonado noted that the nearest homes are 316 feet to the south and 328 feet to the north, and that deliveries load from the rear alley. When Commissioner Lisa Robinson asked about parking for 159 seats, senior planner Gil Martinez said city code has no parking requirement in that district.

The plan drew support at the hearing from commissioners and from a neighbor who spoke in favor, and Vice Mayor Karen Marriott called it "exactly the kind of building that should have been there all along." As of the January report, the restaurant had no name, operator or opening date. For now it is an approved plan, and its upper decks will be four street numbers from the Seahorse's ground-floor dining room.

The ground floor is still where the old favorites are

Down the rest of the strip, the familiar places are back at street level:

• Paradise Grille, the beachfront spot, reopened on February 14, 2025, after a four-month closure following the hurricanes, as the St. Pete Catalyst reported.
• Shadrack's on Eighth Avenue made the Tampa Bay Times' 2026 beach-bar guide.
• Brass Monkey on Gulf Way lists its address and current hours on its own website.
• Red, White & Booze at 2007 Pass-a-Grille Way took over the former Sea Critters Cafe space in 2022, as Creative Loafing reported. Its current site lists daily hours and weekend breakfast.

Planning around the two levels

Day to day, the two levels suit different plans. The Seahorse and Paradise Grille are breakfast and lunch places at street level, and you can walk in. Moon's rooftop takes a reservation. The planned full moon parties haven't been given dates yet, so check with the restaurant before planning an evening around one. Once 804 Pass-a-Grille Way is built, the channel side will have a second set of upper decks, with outdoor music banned by its permit.

The view is what you're paying for upstairs. On Moon's terrace, the Gulf is on one side and the channel on the other, which you can't get from a ground-floor table on Eighth Avenue.

At The Salamone Group, we follow Pass-a-Grille block by block, from the Seahorse's rebuilt dining room to the decks approved at 804. If you'd like to talk about how changes along Eighth Avenue and Pass-a-Grille Way affect your corner of the island, we'd be glad to hear from you. Let's Connect.