He says, “Waterfront, bank-owned, close to downtown, west of the Trail. Under $350,000. Now, that rates a look—wouldn’t you say?” She says, “I did see that one come on—great price at $339,000 if it is what we think it is: a buildable lot on good boating water very close to downtown. Whitaker Bayou, right? On Alameda? I don’t think it will last too long—-who do we have looking for that? Pondering our list of buyers, we hopped in Donald’s Cadillac and sped over to 2024 Alameda Avenue to have a [...]

As proud media partners with the Sarasota Film Festival, we here at This Week in Sarasota had a few pairs of feet on the ground at last Monday’s kickoff celebration. And here’s a little sampling of who and what we saw … Photography by Scott Braun.

Chef Darwin Santa Maria and flavorful food may be synonymous in Sarasota. Darwin has created and served his version of Latin fusion cuisine in a number of Sarasota venues for over a decade. Although a number of stories have been written about Darwin’s culinary skills and talent, I wanted the backstory on Darwin’s culinary evolution. Here is what I found. JLQ: Many things have been written about you, so I would like to focus on something you would like the Sarasota area to know about you but has not yet [...]

Think back to high school. Think about the mean girls, the annoying cliques, the horrible food and the stress of fitting in. Now that you’re totally depressed, think about your favorite teacher. You know, the one that inspired you to want to do a good job, the one who helped you find that unique career path or the one that just got a smile on your face when the rest of your day had been horrible. For me, that teacher was Ron Carr at Riverview High School in Sarasota. Ask [...]

I feel an instant connection to Kara Shay Thomson. Everyone likes to feel special, and Kara Shay has a way about her of making one feel like the most important person in the room. She comes across as completely sincere, and within seconds we’ve established such a great rapport that I end up taking four pages of notes for my half-page article, and she is rushed away to rehearsal before I feel like I’ve spent enough time with her. Kara is the star of this season’s American Classic, Vanessa by [...]

O, hai. Now that we’ve gotten that abhorrent lolcat speak out of our systems, allow me to introduce myself as This Week in Sarasota’s very first feline contributor. My name is Margot the Catty Kitty, although for the sake of brevity I do answer to simply “Margot”—when I deign to answer to any name at all, that is. As the loyal feline companion to a certain quirky spinster who happens to be on staff at TWIS (and no, I’m not talking about the lovely Blonde Out of Water—she has far [...]