Clarification: Sea Dog is currently in soft open to the public; the event on Thursday is the grand opening.

Sea Dog Brewing Company will open its second Florida location on Thursday in the Lake Buena Vista tourist sector. The Maine-based brewpub, which also has a location in Clearwater, takes over the former Crab House space in the Vista Centre Shoppes at 8496 Palm Parkway.

Sea Dog is the sister operation of Shipyard Brewing Company, which formerly operated a brewpub at Orlando International Airport. That locations, which the company claims to be the first brewpub ever located at an airport, closed about 10 years ago when the airport was undergoing renovations. (I know, try to remember a time when the airport hasn’t been undergoing renovations.) It also operates Shipyard Brew Pub (nee Shipyard Emporium) in Winter Park. The company is owned by Fred Forsley.

Sea Dog Brewing Company Orlando will open Thursday, April 25, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 p.m. Thereafter, it will be open for lunch and dinner daily. Here’s a link to seadogbrewing.com.

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Today I’m launching a new type of SJO Dining Deal, one geared specifically for the type of diner who reads the flog, and I’m starting with one of our favorite restaurants, K in College Park.

In the past, the deals have typically been for a specific dollar amount, say $40 of food and drink at the featured restaurant for a purchase price of $20. But the average reader of SJO is someone who loves good food and wine and dining out at good restaurants. Their average check would go well over $40. It was still a good deal, but I think this one is better.

With this SJO Dining Deal at K restaurant, we’re offering three levels of purchase prices for the certificates, but each requires a minimum purchase price at the restaurant. So you can choose the level that meets your requirements. They are:

• $25 certificate for $10 with a minimum purchase of $37.50
• $50 certificate for $25 with a minimum purchase of $95
• $75 certificate for $30 with a minimum purchase of $140

And with this launch, I’m also initiating another new feature. For every certificate sold, SJO will donate $1 to a charity or cause selected by the restaurant. K’s owner and chef Kevin Fonzo has chosen the Edible Schoolyard Project at Orlando Junior Academy as his beneficiary. And, Fonzo has pledged to match each donation.

So, you get a good deal — in most cases better than 50 percent off — not to mention a good dinner, and the Edible Schoolyard Project gets some much needed funds. Wins all around.

As always, I will feature only the best restaurants on this site. If you’ve been to K, you know that this is one of the area’s best. If you haven’t, here’s your chance to give it a try.

I hope you enjoy it.

Click here to go to the SJO Dining Deals page.

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 The garden at Orlando Junior Academy.

Here’s something that grew, as many things do, in a garden. But this was an idea, the beginning of a project. And that idea — that project — is also a garden.

Let me explain.

For several years, Kevin Fonzo has had a garden behind his restaurant at 1710 Edgewater Drive, even before he moved K restaurant there, when it was still known as Nonna. Fonzo was somewhat ahead of the trend to use local ingredients and way ahead of the “hyperlocal” sourcing movement that currently has chefs scouring their properties for space to plant herbs and vegetables.

Fonzo has a few tables in his garden available for diners, and on one evening, about six or so years ago, Brad Jones was dining in the garden behind Nonna. Jones, it turned out, is an instructor at Orlando Junior Academy. He chatted with Fonzo about a garden he was trying to get started and they shared tips and gardening secrets.

Jones told Fonzo that the school was currently in search of someone to run the cafeteria, and he wondered if Fonzo might know of someone who might be interested in the position. Fonzo recommended himself.

Just take a moment to mull the idea of one of the area’s most celebrated chefs cooking in a school cafeteria. But that’s exactly what occurred. And before you start imagining the kids dining on porcini dusted filets and grilled duck breast, you should know that OJA is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventists and so its cafeteria is strictly vegetarian. 

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Robert Earl is getting creative again.

The man who brought you Planet Hollywood and Earl of Sandwich, among other concepts, has a new venture. But now he wants to send you to other people’s restaurants. The new business is called Every Occasion, and it’s for people who like to throw parties but hate the task of putting one together.

Let’s say you are in charge of organizing a get-together, say a bridal shower for a friend. You and your friends have all decided you want to gather at a restaurant. Your task is to find one and make all the arrangements. Ugh. You have to decide on a place, call to check on availability, negotiate a menu and a price. 

Oh, and about that price. You have to collect all the monies from your group and pay the restaurant. Or worse — argue with the management that you’ll be doing separate checks at the end of the meal.

EveryOccasion.com feels your pain.

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I got a sneak peek at Kings, the new “bowling joint” that will open next week on International Drive. I’ll have more on what I saw — and tasted — later, but I wanted to tell you how you can be among the first in the area to experience the newest bowling restaurant.

On Tuesday, April 16, Kings will host a grand opening party to benefit the Orlando Ballet . The event is called Bowl-erina and will feature lots of food, drinks, live music and  bowling (also live). Tickets are only $65, and get this: that includes show rental!!! Extra points will be awarded to anyone who bowls a strike while executing a pirouette.

The event is from 7 p.m. until midnight and is open only to adults 21 and over. Hosts for the evening are Kings’ owner, Patrick Lyons, and Robert and Tricia Earl. With Robert involved, you know the evening will be over the top, beginning with a klieg-lighted red carpet entrance.

Kings features 22 lanes for bowling, billiard tables, a sports bar with massive flatscreen tvs, booths for dining — some with their own beer taps built right into the table — and lots of other distractions.

To purchase tickets, follow this link to Kings Bowl America. Bowling tutus are not required.

Kings is at 8255 S. International Drive, Orlando.

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It’s no secret that no-shows are a bane to every restaurant that takes reservations. They mess things up for other guests, too, the ones who were turned away when they called to book a table because the restaurant was fully committed, or those who arrive as walk-ins, encouraged by the empty tables beyond the host stand, only to be told those tables are reserved. We’ve all fumed after waiting an hour or so for a table to open up or from our perch at the bar, the only dining option available, as we glanced at the still-empty tables being held for the supposed pre-booked parties.

The restaurateurs aren’t happy about it, either. They’ve calculated expenses, scheduled  staff and ordered provisions based on their projections of the number of guests who will be coming in. To the restaurant owner, the chairs in the dining room are not just places for the guests to sit, they are revenue generators. Insiders sometimes refer to “butts in seats” as the multiplier for the average check figures. No shows mean one or more butts will not occupy those seats, and other butts were turned away. 

So what can a restaurateur do?

Many options have been explored. Some simply take a phone number when a reservation is made in the hope that having that bit of identity connection will assure responsibility from the guest. We know that doesn’t work. Some popular restaurants, such as Emeril’s Orlando, require people who have made a reservation to call again, on the date they are to dine, to reconfirm the appointment. If no call is received, the hopeful diners are warned, the table will be given away. Other restaurants have a staff member call the guests the same day to verify

Victoria & Albert’s takes a credit card number at the time of the reservation and warns guests that no-shows will be charged. In Chicago, Grant Achatz’s Next does not take “reservations” but rather sells tickets to have dinner at the uber popular restaurant — full payment in advance, just as if one were buying a ticket to a concert or other event. Can’t go? Give the ticket away or sell it to someone else or take the loss. (By the way, I employ this method with my Supper Club and Pop-Up Dinner events.) 

Now, in the age of social media, one restaurant owner in Los Angeles has decided to go the public humiliation route. As reported in this article on Huffington Post, Noah Ellis, co-owner of Red Medicine, is calling people out in Twitter posts when they don’t show up, naming the uncrossed-out names that are in the reservation book. Ellis is getting a lot of atta boys from other restaurateurs, but he’s also learning that those who live by the social media sword may also get poked by it. Following his tweets, according to the HuffPo piece, negative reviews about the restaurant began showing up on Yelp.

Attempts to shame or otherwise get revenge on no-showers aren’t new. I’ve been told — totally anecdotally — of owners who have called the number given at the time of the reservation at, say, 3 a.m. to express concern that something might have happened to the members of the party. Or ordering a pizza to be delivered to the home of the absentees, saying they must be hungry after skipping dinner.

Most, however, see those tactics as the slippery slopes they are. 

What’s the solution? I don’t have one beyond the employment of mutual consideration. If guests can’t honor the commitment to dine at the restaurant, they should call the restaurant to say so, even it it’s 15 minutes beyond the reservation time. At least that party cooling its heels in the bar might get a table earlier. I find the “you must call the day of your reservation to confirm” tactic insulting. And I know that paying a staff member to make confirmation calls is not the best use of payroll dollars.

Common courtesy really is the answer. In other words, we’re doomed.

What do you think? Would the threat of public humiliation cause you to notify the restaurant if you’re unable to attend? And restaurateurs, what tactics have you tried — or considered — to put a stop to no-shows? Leave your comments below.

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The Berghoff was never on.

Despite what you may have heard, the old German restaurant on W. Adams street in downtown Chicago is not opening a restaurant in Orlando. In an article in the Orlando Sentinel last week, Sandra Pedicini reported on a proposed revamping of the troubled Festival Bay mall on International Drive into a “$70 million bazaar, farmers market and beer hall.” Apparently the beer hall was supposed to be operated by Berghoff Catering and Restaurant Group.

“It’s not true,” Ashley Malmquist, marketing and media coordinator for Berghoff Catering and Restaurant Group, told me. “I would know about it.” Malmquist said the owners, which have operated the family-run restaurant since 1898, have no plans to expand outside of Chicago. Besides the large restaurant in the Loop, there is a Berghoff Cafe at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, but that is the extent of the company’s expansiveness. Malmquist said she has no idea how the rumor got started. She said the company also takes umbrage with the “beer hall” designation. The Berghoff brewed its own beer at one time but has not done so for quite a while. Still, it was referred to as a saloon when it first opened.

The Berghoff has been operated by someone from the Berghoff family since it first opened. It closed in 2006 but was taken over about a year later by Carlyn Berghoff, a fourth-generation descendant, who moved her catering company there. She eventually decided to reopen the German-American restaurant.

The Berghoff is certainly a Chicago institution. I ate there in 1978 while I was still in grad school and could ill afford a meal out in a nice restaurant. But on a trip to Chicago I was told “you have to eat at the Berghoff.” I took a date there (stop snickering; this was a long time ago) and the only thing I can remember about the meal is that while we were waiting for our food a cockroach scampered across the table. When I told the waiter, a disgruntled older gentleman, he just shrugged and said, “We have a lot of food in the back.”

Have you ever dined at the Berghoff? What are your memories?

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So I got a note from a reader who will be coming to Orlando in May, visiting from Jersey — not the land of Snooki, the one in the Channel Islands. Liz Hobden and her fiance, Joe Lee, decided that while they are here they would like to go ahead and get married. No big to-do, in fact it would just be a wedding party of three: the couple and their officiant. A restaurant would be ideal, they thought. They could stand up and make their vows then sit down to dinner. But they’re running into trouble finding a restaurant.

Oh, there are plenty of restaurants that allow guests to have a ceremony and a reception, but they charge for the  privilege. A fee of $250 just to stand, say, lakeside or under a leafy arbor seemed like a lot to the couple, who are already paying out $400 for the officiant. (The hotel they’re staying at, one near the attractions with a lovely swan-filled pond, wanted $500.)

So Hobden turned to me for recommendations. One that I told her about quoted the $250 fee even though it would be just the three people. “We have to charge or people would be coming here for free weddings all the time,” was the response from the restaurant’s manager, Hobden said. I can understand that reasoning, but wouldn’t the restaurant also like to make the money that would be spent on the celebratory meal following the ceremony (which, let’s face it, pretty much has zero cost for the restaurant associated with it)? That revenue is now lost for that business, as Hobden and Lee look elsewhere.

But where?

That’s why I’m turning to you. I’d like to hear from some of you restaurant owners and managers. What are your policies for this type of reservation, whether it be a party of three or a party of 300? Do you charge a separate fee, or expect to recoup it in food and beverage sales? 

And, more important, would you like to host this couple’s brief wedding? The date is May 4 and the time is 6 p.m. (they’re even be done before your heavy traffic time, for crying out loud).

Leave your thoughts in the comments below. At the very least, I’ll be able to give a better answer to any other dearly betrothed who turn to me in the future.

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Some changes to report.

The little Cuban cafe and bakery that opened just a few months ago on Curry Ford Road as YaYa’s is now called ZaZa’s. Same folks, same menu, just a different name — one that can be used as the owners plot to open more locations in Central Florida. The young man I spoke to at the restaurant said that they did not have the rights to the name YaYa. I’m curious to see how many fans of “La Cage aux Folles” stop in thinking they’re visiting the Jewel of the Riviera depicted in the Jerry Herman musical.

Also on Curry Ford, the restaurant that was Senor Frogi’s Mexican Kitchen is now called Cantinero Caribeno, a Caribbean restaurant. Haven’t been yet, but the turnaround was so quick that I’m wondering if it is the same ownership here, too, with just a different name — one that won’t attract the ire of the people who own Senor Frog’s.

And it looks like New York Diner, the airport area restaurant that opened not so very long ago, has closed. NYD had opened in a new group of shops that also holds a Bonefish Grill. Part of the issue, I was told, is that the Bonefish lease prevented other businesses from competing with it. So anyone operating a restaurant could not feature seafood as a prominent menu item and, even more noteworthy, could not offer a full liquor bar, only beer and wine. Too bad. I liked New York Diner, though it had issues. I thought it offered a nice alternative to dining in the vicinity of MCO.

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Time to polish up those clod kickers and iron the gingham — the Cattle Baron’s Ball is coming up soon.

If you’re not familiar with the CBB, you should be. This is the annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society that features an array of terrific area restaurants. I’ve attended in the past, and it’s one of my favorite events because it’s a lot of fun for a really good cause. It takes place at Rosen Shingle Creek, and the Rosen gang always does a bang-up job. Or maybe that should be a shoot-’em-up job. They go all out is what I’m trying to say.

This year the Cattle Baron’s Ball will be Saturday, April 13, from 6 p.m. until, as the invitation says, “the cows come home.” (Please be advised that the current cow curfew is midnight.) Rosen Shingle Creek is at 9939 Universal Blvd., Orlando.

Here’s the best part: you get to wear that sort of Westerny outfit you bought while you were on vacation in Arizona or New Mexico thinking that you’d look great in it but then realized it would just look silly in Florida so it’s sitting in the closet in the guest bedroom. All attendees are encouraged to dress in “upscale Western,” which is a lot easier to figure out than business casual.

Tickets are $250 per person — remember, this is a fundraiser for the Cancer Society — and that gets you access to all the food and beverages all evening. Some of the restaurants scheduled to be there include Jack’s Place, A Land Remembered, Everglades, BB Kings, K Restaurant and Wine Bar, Emeril’s Orlando, Cuba Libre, Fogo de Chao, Prickly Pear Steakhouse, Uno’s, Cress Restaurant, Empress Sissi, CS Brisket Truck, Hawk’s Landing Steakhouse, and Cusiniers Catering. And with a name like Cattle Baron’s Ball, the event is bound to feature a goodly amount of beef.

Entertainment, too, with Showdown featuring Jaimie Roberts, a country band that will keep things hopping all night.

I plan on being there; I hope you’ll join me. Click this link for more information about the Cattle Baron’s Ball and to purchase your tickets.

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