Make a Rays game a full day out, with a sports bar and Central Avenue restaurants about 0.2 mile from the ballpark.
Make a Rowdies match a night out on the downtown waterfront, with dinner and bars within about 0.3 mile of the stadium.
Plan a race weekend on downtown streets, with places to eat about 0.2 to 0.4 mile from the Dalí Museum end of the circuit.
Open since 1992 across the street from Tropicana Field, Ferg's has grown to nearly two city blocks and eleven separate bars and rooms, including Ferg's Dog Park & Grill, a clubhouse with a DJ booth and the St. Pete Axe & Ale axe-throwing room. USA Today readers named it the best sports bar in America in 2025, and it won Best Sports Bar at the 2026 Visit St. Pete-Clearwater Besties. Food trucks such as Vinnie's Pies and Maxi Empanadas park inside, and you can order from your phone.
BellyUp! St. Pete / Sports
Sports & Game Day St. Pete
Pro and college venues, nearby food and drinks, and places to watch on TV.
14 spots
Debbie and George Sayegh came from Brooklyn, where they ran restaurants including a Cuban coffee shop that used the same Cuban sandwich recipe Bodega serves today. George trained partly in Miami and fell for Latin food; the couple say they built Bodega for themselves because they were hungry for something different. It is a walk-up window with all outdoor seating and a juice bar next door, and the Cuban sandwich and lechon platter are the dishes the venue ties its name to. The same couple opened Baba in Grand Central in 2019 and closed it on 3 July 2026.
Circo is a family-owned pizzeria that spent four years in Tierra Verde before moving in July 2025 into the Skyway Marina space where Portofino Italian Ristorante had cooked for more than three decades. St. Pete Rising says it is best known for New York and Sicilian style pizza in 14 and 18 inch sizes, and it also serves breakfast daily.
Courtside Grille is the Gateway area's sports grill, opening at 11 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays and noon on Sundays.
Fortu opened in late November 2023 on the ground floor of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, in the space Ceviche Tapas Bar had held since 1997 before it moved to Beach Drive in 2021. It was founded by Shan Bakrac and is run through Benson Hospitality Group, with Nathan Howey as executive chef and managing partner. The kitchen is pan-Asian and built for sharing, with Japanese A5 wagyu, wagyu gyoza and Australian wagyu picanha on the menu and a bar that leans on Japanese whisky and sake. MICHELIN's inspectors call it an attractive, high-energy dining room with handsome wood finishes. It has been listed in both years Pinellas County has been eligible.
A walk-up pizza window that opened on July 3, 2026 next to The Luce Hotel, the Marriott property that replaced the storm-closed Postcard Inn. The Gabber reported it already had expansion plans.
Owners Domenic D'Angelo and Tony Mangiafico met in 1992 at a restaurant in Punta Gorda. Domenic started at the old Gratzzi Ristorante in BayWalk in 2001, where Tony was executive chef. When that restaurant closed in 2009, the two reopened it in 2010 as Gratzzi Italian Grille on 2nd Street South.
North St. Petersburg pub-style restaurant whose own site says it offers Happy Hour specials and a complete lineup of soccer games. Its contact page lists Tuesday to Saturday 11 to 9:30, Sunday 11 to 8:30, closed Monday.
Opened in October 2025 on the ground floor beside the Tru by Hilton, from the team behind Noble Crust in north St. Pete and Fat Beet Farm Kitchen and Bakery in Tampa ... partners Jeff Strouse, TJ Thielbar and Chris Sweeney. The menu is all small plates and is built to change with the season; much of the produce comes from the group's own Fat Beet Farm. Chef Fernando Sanchez leads the kitchen.
The bar Gulfport measures storms by ... after Hurricane Helene The Gabber's publisher wrote a note titled 'The O'Maddy's Index', and during Idalia in 2023 police closed it because the corner was under water. It faces the Gulfport Pier, has live music every day and welcomes dogs at the outside tables. In March 2026 it opened a second floor, a long-planned expansion that The Gabber says came after 20 years in business.
The dining room is built around a 33,500 gallon aquarium that fills a wall. The own site describes Floribbean cooking and Gulf seafood, a sports bar with a deck, a boutique, and live entertainment every night on an indoor stage. Suncoast Family Fun lists it for children because of the tank.
Jack Thomas started Skyway Jack's in 1976 as a shack at O'Neill's Marina feeding boaters and fishermen near the Skyway, and moved it up 34th Street South about two decades ago. You find it by the giant Humpty Dumpty and the rooster out front. Breakfast runs all day, and the Food Network once picked Jack's scrapple as Florida's best breakfast dish. I Love the Burg later reported a new owner, Darren Forte.
A hurricane-themed tavern that opened on September 25, 2024 ... one day before Hurricane Helene hit Gulfport. It is three rooms in one: a main dining room, The Crow's Nest rooftop bar over Boca Ciega Bay and BARk, a dog-friendly tiki bar. Artist Derek Donnelly later painted a 'Guardian of Gulfport' mural on the building about the town getting through Helene and Milton. Live music runs Tuesday to Sunday.
A second-floor diner inside the terminal at Albert Whitted Airport where the tables face the runway and the harbor, so a meal comes with small planes taking off and landing. It opens at 8am every day but Christmas and describes its cooking as 'killer comfort food'.
A tavern in a century-old farmhouse on 4th Street North with a summer orchard and verandas, built around what it calls the spirit of Old Florida. Happy hour is half off drafts, house wines and wells. Its site also lists a Beach Drive Walk Up Cafe at 400 Beach Dr and a Gulfport drive-thru.
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