By this point, last year already seems a bit like a blur! I spent some time earlier this week reading back over my last twelve “From The Desk of John Horne” monthly emails to remind myself of all the good news we were able to share in 2021.
Despite its difficulties, 2021 proved that recovery is not a straight line forward, but has its ups and downs…and also it’s sideways…sometimes even its upside-downs! Lately, I’m reminded that as much as we all wish we could push a button and go back in time two years, the reality is that this IS reality now and we’re all in this together, again, adapting to a new world.
Our Anna Maria Oyster Bars are a great example of this. It’s taken a collective spirit of positivity, enthusiasm, creativity, and flexibility to help us adapt and overcome. Our new all-day menu is just one of the ways we’re adapting to changing times and conditions. We’re more able to hone in on what our guests love about our experience and deliver that to you, even better than before. A simplified menu allows our kitchen teams at each location to use what’s available in-house at each location to create exciting specials on a day-to-day basis. And man is it hard to guess what’s going to be on our delivery trucks daily with the Supply Chain being as broken as it is right now.
The seasonal menus we offered throughout 2021 were a big hit with our adventurous guests who were eager to sample new creations and find new AMOB favorites. A collaboration with local distillery Loaded Cannon was one of the highlights of the year…Steve Milligan and his team in LWR do an awesome job crafting high-quality spirits of many different varieties and unique flavors.
Around the Oyster Bars, in addition to the new all-day menu you’ve heard about, we’ve also reimagined a selection of Light Bites available until 5pm daily with slightly smaller portions. Earlier in the year we introduced some AWESOME new Happy Hour(s) deals over the summer. The deals run from 3pm until 6pm daily and are themed to 3-4-5-6, with great value for each dollar, like $3 select drafts, $4 well drinks, $5 house wines, and $6 premium cocktails & wines. This all but guarantees that the best deals in town can be found every afternoon at the Oyster Bars!
In the spring, we learned that our Oyster Bars were recognized as the Best Seafood Restaurant by the readers of the Herald-Tribune. We were also selected as the Bradenton Herald People’s Choice Award winners in SEVEN! Categories:
•Best All Around Restaurant
•Best Burger
•Best Earlier Bird Special
•Best Happy Hour
•Best Margarita
•Best Raw Bar
•Second-Best Place to Meet People.
WOW…these awards really do mean a lot to the success of our restaurants…we appreciate your continued support. Be on the lookout for voting opportunities coming our way very soon!
Our fifth-annual summer reading program Dive Into Reading mentored 543 children from all 15 Manatee County Title I elementary schools, at 6 sites thanks to 322 volunteer mentors. Overall our students gained .5 months of reading skills – a HUGE win since usually a small loss is anticipated for most children over the summer.
Amanda and I were recognized by the Manatee Chamber of Commerce at the 58th Annual Dinner as the recipients of the 4th Annual Robert P. Bartz Award for Outstanding Leadership. A huge honor from an organization extremely special to us. Our Managing Partner at Landside, Greg Guevara was selected to participate in the Chamber’s Leadership Manatee program for this year and he’s having a ball, learning about our community, and making new friends.
We also were extremely humbled to receive the “Believing in Girls” award from the statewide organization of Pace Center for Girls.
I’ve kept busy for the last six months serving in leadership for two organizations that are extremely important to our business. In June I took over the gavel as Chair of the Board of Leadership Florida, and on January 1st this year I stepped in as the Vice Chair/Chair Elect of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association.
Our Chief Operating Officer, Chris Frawley, joined the AMOB Family in May and hit the ground running, leading the way through these enhancements with positivity and inspiring us all to give our best to the Oyster Bar community, day in and day out.
Chris has had us ALL working on formulating and putting on paper our Mission Statement for the O Bars…what an awesome project we’ve been undertaking…look for our rollout very soon…hint hint…check the entrances at our restaurants to see…OK, I can’t keep a secret…here it is…so proud of all the input and efforts by everyone to put to paper what we’ve all felt and practiced for 25+ years
We’ve added fun murals at two of our restaurants for you to interact with and pose for photos, which we love seeing via the #AMOBLove on Instagram!
In early August, we celebrated Oyster Week with AWESOME new creations featuring our namesake oysters which were featured on a few different Tampa Bay area news networks.
And there’s a lot more in store for you, as well…oops, I mean restaurant, not store…as our senior leadership has worked as a team to refine our mission and vision statements, I’ve been reminded lately that what we are is a restaurant group, where our single most important job every day is to serve our guests and make them happy. As simple as that, right!
At the end of the day, we have the BEST job in the world because we get to bring people delicious food and the best Margaritas served by the nicest, best people this side of heaven. We get to celebrate milestones and experience gatherings of loved ones and make people’s days just a tiny bit better. For those reasons, and because I’m blessed with 300-ish awesome coworkers, I’ll always consider my job the best job in the world. I’m excited to lead this team into the future, wherever that might take us, for another year.
Cheers to you, and to 2022!
