St. Pete's Small Bar spends weekends dishing out prized plates and 'real wine'

Despite soft opening back in June, folks may only have a few more months to enjoy this temporary wine bar and from-scratch kitchen in downtown St. Petersburg.

The self-explanatory Small Bar operates in a roughly 300 square-foot space in between Bandit Coffee Co.'s kitchen and seating area, which was previously used for storage.

With a few small tables and a handful of bar seats, Small Bar can accommodate a little more than a dozen patrons at a time.

Small Bar, which shares Bandit’s address of 2662 Central Ave., is open 5 p.m.-midnight Friday and Saturday with staggered reservations available through Resy.com , or on a first-come, first-served basis on Sundays from 5 p.m.-10 p.m.

The food program helmed by Bandit’s head chefs Benjamin Pomales and Adrianna Siller features an intimate, rotating menu of small plates—like playful twists on bar snacks like onion rings croissant garlic knots—and entrees like beef stroganoff, fish and chips, lion’s mane steaks and pan-seared scallops with parsnip, basil, avocado, orange and vanilla.

Folks can order Small Bar’s dishes on an a la carte basis, or opt for a three-course "Chef’s Choice" menu for $55.

A few desserts—dairy-filled and plant-based alike—are available at Small Bar, too, with this weekend’s menu featuring a strawberry sorbet topped with “really good olive oil and orange zest” and a chocolate croissant bread pudding served with ice cream and banana caramel.

For drinks, Small Bar offers a variety of beer, natural or “low intervention” wine and a few N/A options, too.

In addition to its chefs, other folks on Small Bar’s team include Bandit co-owner Josh Weaver, Seth Davis and Jay Smith, who also works at Bandit.

They’re all simply raising funds to continue the build out of their upcoming wine bar Spitz , that’s headed to a neighboring space in the Grand Central District at 2520 Central Ave. Small Bar, with its robust natural wine program and rotating menu of globally-inspired plates, can be considered the first iteration of Spitz, which could open this “fall or early winter” Weaver recently told Helen Freund.

The upcoming wine bar’s ownership team describes Small Bar as a “little taste of what to expect at Spitz, but also having elements completely unique to itself.”

“At Spitz, we’re going with a tagline of ‘real wine’ and ‘real bites”—not because anyone is serving fake wine—but it takes the debate of what’s natural, minimal or low-intervention off the table a bit,” Davis told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay in a phone call. “We’re not trying to reinvent anything, but really just want to focus on wine made in vineyards and not cellars. Instead of a debating about what’s what, we can get a conversation started with our customers.”

While its wine offerings are constantly changing, Davis says that Small Bar, and eventually Spitz, will continue to work with Florida-based distributors like Nada Wine, DF Rosati and Honest Makers.

Give @smallbarstp a follow on Instagram for more information on its rotating food menu and wine selections. [location-1] Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

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