Ceviche Tapas Moving Sarasota Location

After five years on First Street, Ceviche Tapas Bar & Restaurant will move to 55 Palm Ave., in early 2013.

The restaurant will move to the historic Mira Mar Plaza where there's on-street parking and will be closer to the action of Main Street, Ceviche Chief Operating Officer Joe Orsino told Patch.

"We wanted to get to a more central spot closer to Main Street and Palm. We wanted to have a better customer layout and a spot where we could have a better dedicated dining space, and we wanted to have a more dining friendly patio," Orsino said. 

Orsino anticipates Ceviche will take over the spot during the first quarter of 2013 and there will be no downtime between the closing of its current location and the opening of the new location.  

One of the keys of the new location is that having just one level simplifies the layout for watching bands play. 

"It's a more entertainment-centric layout," Orsino said. "The restaurant, bar, live entertainment, patio will be more integrated and not so much segregated as the current building."

The location will feature outdoor dining beside a waterfall feature, and one of the critical aspects of the location is that there is on-street parking available.

"We own no parking," Orsino said about the 1216 1st St. location. "We had to lease parking around us, and we operate valet. There's very little parking choices for customers who want to drive themselves and don't want to valet."

Valet will still be offered at the new location, he added.

Ceviche also had moved its South Tampa location to the Hyde Park area this year when that lease expired, which is the same case as the Sarasota relocation—an expired lease opened the door.

"We're certainly not looking at it as a downsize or a forced relocation," he said, adding that the new location in Tampa has been well received and "very successful."

And while the location will change, he said, the menu will stay the same.