Recipe for success

In a six-year effort to transform a shuttered steakhouse restaurant on Longboat Key, Sarasota real estate investor W. Howard Rooks, even with his decades of experience, faced a formidable adversary: the recession.

Rooks, who previously owned restaurants in Virginia and Florida, in addition to a large residential realty firm in Washington, D.C., sought to replace Mattison's Steakhouse at the Plaza. The restaurant, in a shopping center next to a recently renovated Publix, closed in 2008. But Rooks ran into financing obstacles in his mission.

“The economy was just terrible,” says Rooks, “and no one had that kind of money that they wanted to risk.”

Rooks plowed ahead. Over the past two years Rooks has made significant renovations to the building, which is modeled after the Plaza Hotel in New York. He tripled the size of its bar, installed a new electrical system plus new carpeting and landscaping and added new artwork to the restaurant's collection. He declined to say how much he invested in the building, which he bought for $1.4 million in 2004.

The conversion, recently completed, is now Amore by Andrea, a contemporary Italian restaurant. Says Rooks: “After six years of vacancy, I'm thrilled.”

Rooks' partner in the venture is Andrea Bozzolo, a chef and the owner of Andrea's The Art of Food & Wine on Siesta Drive in Sarasota. A native of Pallanza in Piedmont, Italy, Bozzolo moved in 2003 to Siesta Key before vacationing there one year earlier.

Amore by Andrea will serve contemporary Italian cuisine using a combination of local, organic produce and meat and ingredients imported from Italy. “We use local fisheries and all organic vegetables,” Bozzolo says. “We make our own pasta and breads, using flour imported from Italy.”

Rooks, who previously owned Cork Restaurant on St. Armands Circle, hopes to expand Amore by Andrea past what was there with Mattison's. He received a special exception for outdoor dining from Longboat Key, which allowed him to add 50 seats in a 1,600-square-foot outdoor patio. That's in addition to the 210 seats inside the 6,200-square-foot eatery.

A space that big is something of a rarity on Longboat Key: The Colony Beach & Tennis Resort has been closed for more than four years and the former Longboat Key Hilton Beachfront Resort is closed for renovations until next year. Rooks plans to capitalize on that and make Amore available for events. “We're going to do special events, rehearsal dinners, birthday dinners, anniversary parties, divorce parties,” Rooks says.

Rooks had a long career in residential real estate in and around Washington, D.C., before he relocated to the Sarasota area. In the 1970s and 1980s he grew Mount Vernon Realty into one of the largest real estate brokers on the east coast, with more 2,000 agents and 30 offices. He later ran the Washington office of Weichert Realty.