What It Used To Be In Sarasota, FL

        Party In Sarasota Like It's 1989! 1989 seems like it was yesterday, but 35 years is really a long time.  To put it into perspective, I began 1989 in my late twenties and am now in mid-sixties. And so many changes have happened since then. We were renting VCR tapes to watch movies and listening to music on boom boxes and walkmans (still using cassette tapes) or on our brand-new CD players (I loved my 5-disc CD changer!).  We were making phone calls on our home phones or any pay phone we could find if we were out. And some of us were lucky enough to have a personal computer, but all you could do with it was to run mostly slow programs installed on its hard drive.   In Sarasota as far as retail goes, Sarasota Square Mall was riding high with a new wing being built and a new anchor store (Parisian). Gulf Gate Mall was still hanging in, having gone through extensive renovations two years earlier and with new restaurants, including TGI Friday’s and Hooters.  Southgate Plaza had

14th St. W. (U.S. 41), Bradenton FL  North Tamiami Trail in Sarasota turns into 14th Street W. at about the Sarasota/Bradenton line. As a supplement to  What It Used To Be in Sarasota, FL , here are some business establishments that are or have been located on 14th St. W. (U.S. 41) in Bradenton listed by street number. The list will be expanded and updated. Photo credits: Bradenton Herald 14th St. W. (U.S. 41)  2004 - Key West Supermarket (since 2019) used to be a Margaret Ann Supermarket from January 1953 (name changed to Kwik Chek in 1956 and Winn Dixie by 1973) until May 1990. It then became a Foodway Supermarket from December 1990 until about 2005 and Bravo Supermarket from about 2005 to 2019.   2239 - Academy Child Care Center used to be Fat Boy's Bar-B-Q from 1977 to about 1989. It then became Southern Comfort Saloon from 1990 to 2000 and Tia Oli's Restaurant starting in June 2001 before becoming a children's day care center by 2005. 3240 - This used to be Panda Garde