Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor To Feature 20 Original Food & Beverage Outlets

On Florida’s west coast nestled between Fort Myers and Tampa is Charlotte Harbor, a small waterfront town where the Peace River meets the salty Gulf waters — making it the second largest estuary in the Sunshine State. Full of quaint old Florida character, it’s an ideal spot for families to vacation.

This October, it will become home to Florida’s newest luxury resort — Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor. The first resort property from Sunseeker Resorts, it will span across 22 waterfront acres with 785 guest rooms, including 189 Signature Sunsuites.

While that’s impressive in its own right, what really makes this resort stand out is the fact that it will feature 20 original wholly-owned food and beverage concepts. A resort where dining is at its core, there will be seven signature restaurants, 11 bars and lounges, and a massive food hall with 11 of its very own outlets.

Featuring everything from fine dining and casual grab and go options, the restaurants will include a modern steakhouse, a trattoria-style Italian restaurant, coastal Mexican restaurant, an immersive stadium inspired sports bar, a full-service in-house patisserie, tons of outdoor dining, and more.

“The culinary experience at Sunseeker is the foundation of our resort. We know how important it is for travelers and the local community to have dining options from approachable and casual to fine and celebratory,” says Jason Shkorupa, Senior Vice President of Sunseeker Resorts. “We bring something truly unique to the market — and the hospitality industry — and we cannot wait to start welcoming guests in October.”

Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor’s 20 concept restaurant line up includes:

Harbor Yards Food Hall – Meant to be focal point as you enter the resort, this 25,000 square foot food hall will be home to 11 concepts that will be open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Outlets include: Riverfront Roast serving coffee; Brick + Daisy wine bar and cocktails; Chartisan serving charcuterie, cheese, and antipasti; Sweet Shine as a patisserie and dessert bar; Arezzo a craft pizza kitchen; Taqueria Puerto serving coastal cantina fare; Kinderhook raw bar and crab company; Saddle Creek featuring classic American favorites; Daikon an Asian kitchen serving noodles and sushi; Charlotte Parlor a gelato shop and creperie; and Copper Cask beer garden and custom cocktails.

Maury’s Steak, Seafood & Spirits – Satisfy your surf and turf dreams nightly. This menu will offer selections of aged beef and sustainable seafood from both the local region and oceans afar. Private dining rooms and an impressive 600 bottle wine wall can be found here.

Stretto Coastal Italian Table – Open for dinner, this restaurant will feature freshly made pastas, flatbreads, Italian-inspired seafood and meat dishes, and farm-to-table fresh ingredients. A large brick-oven will serve as the centerpiece of the restaurant, complementing a glass-enclosed show kitchen.

Blue Lime Modern Coastal Mexican – A contemporary Baja-inspired Mexican restaurant that will open nightly for dinner with picturesque views of Charlotte Harbor and resort’s Reflections Pool. Dishes will use both authentic and modern techniques with bold beloved Mexican flavors. The bar will be a staple feature of the restaurant and will offer a modern twist on classic Mexican cocktails, an expansive collection of Mexican beers, and over 100 tequilas.

Allegiant Stadium Sports Table Tap – This spot will be open daily for lunch, dinner, and late-night sports action. Allegiant Stadium Sports Bar aims to be the perfect place for fans to make sure they don’t miss a moment of the action with 60+ televisions. The menu will feature Americana pub food made with approachable, fun, indulgent ingredients. There will also be a wide selection of cold beers on tap in the keg room in addition to a signature cocktail menu.

Half Cracked Tiki Shack – On this menu you’ll find Gulf Coast flavors with a nod to Caribbean island life culture. Think: bucket o’ shrimp, steamed clams, baked oysters, fresh grilled fish, plus burgers, ribs, and chicken. The high-energy bar program will include jumbo fish bowl punches, signature Tiki Torch drinks, frozen cocktails, beer, and wine. Keeping the vibes going, this restaurant will host live music every night.

Level Blue Rooftop Pool Bar & Bites – An exclusive adults-only rooftop experience overlooking Charlotte Harbor, this spot will serve fun and exciting specialty cocktails and a menu offering fresh, lighter fare. With awe-inspiring 360-degree views it will be the perfect setting for sunset.

Reflections Pool Complex – A tropical oasis with bayside views of Charlotte Harbor and plenty of lounge chairs and cabanas. A visit here means soaking in the sun and sipping on frozen cocktails, signature drinks, or ice cold beers. Small bites and lunch will also be available to order from lounge chairs or the bar.

Waterside Table Restaurant + Bar – Located between the pool oasis and the Charlotte Harbor, Waterside Table will be a place to grab a drink and dine in a poolside air-conditioned restaurant, boasting an elevated open-air view of the pool and harbor. The menu will offer fresh coastal poolside fare like fısh tacos, burgers, and salads.

I got the chance to chat with Jason Shkorupa, who is the Senior Vice President of Sunseeker Resorts, about the upcoming resort’s expansive food and beverage program and here’s how it went.

Amber Love Bond: Congratulations on the new property! This is unlike anything else in the area! The 20 outlets at Sunseeker really span across all cuisines — was there a formula to making that happen?

Jason Shkorupa: It was important to us to ensure that we well represented what we call the “category killers” in F&B hospitality. The cuisines that we felt our guests would appreciate the most and that would not only satisfy guests staying at the resort, but also those in the local community who will visit the resort to dine. We spent a year shopping the area from Tampa to Naples to identify what’s working and what’s not, as well as what is missing.

ALB: Were there other outlets that were considered?

JS: We honestly considered many types of other venues but spent a great deal of time looking closely at the SW Florida coast, as well as evaluating (what we defined as our competitive set) the local area to arrive at a conclusion of the current program.

We spent a great deal of time looking from a 30,000-foot view across the entire acreage of this resort, envisioning what it will look like after the first phase and then when we move into the next phase of development. It’s very important as we expand into the next phase of the project, that the program is calculated, broad, and robust which is vital to the success at a fully integrated resort campus. You must not be too duplicative and everything needs to be complementary to the program.

ALB: Food halls are all the rage — in fact I just got a pitch saying they are the “new buffets”) — meant to be a big focus, do you think this is where a majority of lunch and breakfast dining will take place?

JS: Yes, we anticipate many of our hotel guests will utilize the food hall for breakfast and lunch. However, the local community in the area doesn’t have options like this within a close proximity (75 mile radius) and there’s a likelihood that with the offerings and service we have the dinner crowd will also be packed with locals in addition to our resort guests wanting to try something new. It was important to us that we replaced your typical 3 meal dining Café (that is predominant in most hotels) and replaced it with a more robust, high quality, open-aired social atmosphere to our guests.

Our food hall makes a bold statement being in the heart of the main hotel tower. When you arrive at the property, it’s been strategically placed in the center of all the action, and you clearly know from the start this is not your average hotel food and beverage program.

ALB: In the food hall will each station/concept have menus that rotate with each meal time or will some stay relatively the same?

JS: Yes, each outlet will have menus dedicated to the various time periods of the day. For example, our Mexican outlet will start with items like breakfast burritos in the morning and transition to lunch/dinner offerings like burritos and street tacos, as well as a full salsa bar.

Another thing that makes our food hall unique is because we own all of the outlets, we offer both non-alcoholic and alcohol cuisine inspired beverages at the various outlets. For example, we will have great Asian beers and sake available at our Asian venue (Daikon), as well as Jarritos sodas, and Mexican beers and margaritas at our Mexican venue (Taqueria Puerto).

ALB: Will there be any kind of dining packages offered as guests book their stays?

JS: We will have special promotions and packages—including pre-fix menus custom curated by our amazing chefs. More specific details to come on this as we approach closer to our opening.

ALB: This is an impressive undertaking — how many employees will be hired to staff 20 food and beverage outlets? That’s got to be great for the local community!

JS: The resort in total will hire over 1,200 employees, over half those within food & beverage. We’re really excited to bring these opportunities to the community especially with everything that happened to hospitality workers in the surrounding area post Hurricane Ian.

ALB: For the dinner restaurants will reservations be required or will guests who might not know what they’re craving for dinner until the last minute be able to walk in and be seated?

JS: We recommend reservations but always will do our best to accommodate last-minute or walk-in guests. In the event that the restaurant is at capacity, we will offer guests a table at one of the other amazing restaurants where we know they won’t be disappointed and the dining experience will exceed their expectations.

ALB: Will any of the dining outlets be open to the public or do you have to be a resort guest to dine?

JS: Yes, all of our dining outlets on property will be available to all visitors of the resort whether they’re a hotel guest or just passing through for the day.

Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor is set to open in October 2023 with big plans to enhance the landscape in Charlotte Harbor, Florida. Additional hotel amenities include a waterfront promenade, two rooftop and waterfront pool experiences, 60,000-square-feet of combined convention space, a full-service spa and salon, a 7,100-square-foot state-of-the-art fitness center with four group exercise studios and specialty instructor-lead classes, seven retail and market shops, and an 18-hole championship-level golf club exclusive only to hotel guests.