The Beach Bistro has the good fortune to be located in the community of Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island – the best place to live in the whole world. We are very proud of our community and proud of the community support we have provided.
The heart and soul of Anna Maria Island is the Anna Maria Island Community Center. The Center serves as the hub of life on the Island. It hosts children’s soccer, basketball, Little League, and tennis programs, along with dance, fine arts, theatre and cooking classes, after-school programs and summer camps.
For over twenty years the Beach Bistro’s community “sghetti dinners” have provided all of the sport jerseys and supplies for the soccer, basketball and baseball programs. We never tire of seeing the excited faces of four-year-olds receiving their first-ever shiny new sports jerseys and parading them proudly the next day at school. The “Sghetti” sports banquets are also a chance for the families of Anna Maria Island to come together and celebrate their children and their community.
Anna Maria Island has a wonderful public school, the Anna Maria Elementary School. This perfect, little bay-side school has done an exemplary job of educating and nurturing the children of Anna Maria Island for over 60 years - including Sean and Susan’s children.
The Bistro helped create the fourth grade’s Edible Garden project. The students, working with the seeds, soil, and Earth Boxes that the Bistro funds, have been growing a large variety of herbs and vegetables. Throughout the year, they help feed their fellow schoolmates, have sent fresh vegetables to the local soup kitchen and they have learned the difference between basil and oregano, kale and arugula.
In May the young gardeners and their teachers are entertained at the Beach Bistro, where the Bistro chef staff creates a multi-course luncheon for them from their bounteous harvest. The children, carefully dressed and impeccably mannered, excitedly identify the various herbs and vegetables in the dishes created for them. It is our favorite event of the year!
The Beach Bistro has also been a long-time supporter of the 13th Avenue Community Center. The center was created in the 1930’s with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt and it has worked hard to support and nurture the children and families of central Manatee County. The Center provides a variety of sports and after-school, summer and family support programs. The Bistro has assisted the Center in a number of donating functions but most particularly Sean and Susan’s daughter, Alexandra - as a high school student - created an annual literary festival, “Bookfest” - now in its sixth year.
The children and their families enjoy a celebratory day of free food, story-telling, plays, crafts and games and every child leaves Bookfest with armfuls of new books they select themselves. The smiles on their faces as they select their books tells a special story of its own.
The Bistro’s newest passion is international but could not be any closer to our hearts. Sean and Susan’s daughter was born twenty-two years ago with a severe heart defect. She is now a thriving young adult, thanks to a pioneering pediatric heart surgeon, Dr Aldo Castaneda.
Dr. Castaneda is responsible for making possible the surgical repair of congenital heart defects in babies and young children. Every child everywhere who has had heart surgery under the age of two is the direct beneficiary of Dr. Castaneda’s pioneering research. Dr Castaneda has spent his “retirement” years developing a Pediatric Cardiac Surgical Training Center in Guatemala. Prior to the creation of the center there were no surgical options for children of Central America born with heart defects.
One in one hundred babies born has a congenital heart defect - the need for surgical assistance is great. The world grows smaller and parents everywhere deserve the opportunity to watch their children grow to adulthood. Sean and Susan were given that gift by Dr. Castaneda, and we hope to play a minor role in giving that gift to other parents.
The Beach Bistro’s most celebratory community project is the annual Beach Bistro St Patrick’s Day Parade. Like many noble concepts the parade owes its origins to an idea hatched in a bar - the Bistro Bar. The Paddy’s day parade, now in its twelfth year, is the largest St Patrick’s Day parade south and east of Savannah.( It may also be the only the St Patrick’s Day parade south and east of Savannah.)
The slow-strolling parade attracts over fifteen thousand celebrants and features area marching bands, pipe bands, musicians and colorful floats as well as charming wee folk dressed as leprechauns. Recent parades were led by Parade Marshalls and World War Two veterans Mr Sam Castelli and Mr Jim Gabaree.
The Parade’s feature presentation is “Judy the Parade Elephant” led by her companion of over forty years, Mr. Bones.
The Parade is master- minded by Bistro bar manager Fred Sullivan and is a testament to the creative power of Irish Bar Geniuses.
The Bistro has received numerous community awards including the prestigious Pinnacle Award for support of the area’s public schools. Sean Murphy has served on numerous foundation and civic boards, has been selected Anna Maria Island’s “Citizen of the Year” and was recently honored with the Holmes Beach “Civic Partner” award – an honor he shares with the public library.