Amore Restaurant to reopen in downtown Sarasota

Amore Restaurant have left Longboat Key in 2017, but island residents have still flocked over the bridge to the place since then. Owner Tito Vitorino hopes they’ll keep coming as he moves the restaurant from Burns Court to 180 N. Lime Ave. in downtown Sarasota. He hopes to open as soon as possible, possibly the week of Jan. 11, he said. 

About 20% of the clientele followed the leaders, which included then-owner Howard Rooks, when Amore moved to Burns Court after its original off-island move, Vitorino said. Prior to reopening on Lime, Vitorino and wife Liana had still been getting calls daily from Longboat Key residents asking when the restaurant will reopen and when they can come visit. 

“We were able to build a great relationship,” Vitorino said. “We have folks who are still very supportive and very attentive in what we are doing.”

If you’re newer to Longboat Key, you may have missed out on the days from 2014-2017 when Amore was the island’s gathering spot on Bay Isles Road. Where the now-demolished building once stood is now the site of the Town Center Green. Back when it was Amore, there was live piano music and Vitorino, who used to work at the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort, made the rounds among regulars every night. One of Longboat’s loyal once referred to it as “the neighborhood ‘Cheers.’” 

“That became obviously the watering hole of a few because the Hilton Hotel … was closed for some time and that was like our sports bar, and then from there we also used to go to the Colony but that also closed,” longtime regular and Longboat Key resident Tom Callahan said. 

In 2014, Rooks opened the restaurant in the former Mattison’s Steakhouse at the Plaza building and gained a faithful following. When the Longboat Key location closed, they had a party for the regulars, whom Liana Vitorino thought of as family. Even when the restaurant moved off-island, adding time (and in-season, much heartache) to the regulars’ route, they still made the pilgrimage. According to Callahan, it was largely because of Tito. 

“He’s a very enthusiastic owner and he’s got a great team and the food’s always good,” Callahan said. “I enjoyed going to see Tito and speaking with him and his wife also. They’re very pleasant people.” 

Tito and Liana Vitorino ran both the Longboat restaurant and the Burns Court restaurant — he as the manager and she as the hostess — on behalf of Rooks. The pair make a good team running the place, Callahan said. The trio came as a package deal until May 2019, when Rooks retired and sold the restaurant to the Vitorinos. The couple, who is Portuguese, then added Portuguese dishes to the Italian menu. It is now half Portuguese, half Italian dishes on the Lime Ave menu. 

“When we moved from that beautiful, majestic location on Longboat Key to the Burns Court area with Howard Rooks, that was always the plan … that in a couple of years, we would buy the place and we will take over from Howard Rooks, and so that is what we did,” Vitorino said. “Everything went according to the plan from the beginning.”

Everything went according to plan — until March 2020. The pandemic and subsequent shutdowns crippled Amore like it did so many others. A crew of regulars kept the takeout orders coming, but it wasn’t enough. Even when they reopened in June, Vitorino said, people mostly wanted to sit on the patio. Though it was spacious, the Vitorinos more than halved their tables to allow for social distancing. While the indoor dining room was open, no one wanted to sit there. 

“Suddenly, I only had 65 seats to work with, and the bills were all the same and then a very profitable restaurant suddenly became a liability,” Vitorino said. 

Rooks, who owns the Burns Court building, let them out of their lease. The only way the Vitorinos could save their restaurant was to downsize, so they packed up and moved. The new location seats 64 indoors and 24 outdoors. Chefs are expensive, so Vitorino is returning to his roots after more than 20 years and standing in as his own chef, while Liana will oversee the whole front-of-house operation. 

“It’s much smaller and much more manageable,” Vitorino said. “We scaled down and we have to change and adapt to the new way of life.” 

After some setbacks in construction and opening, Vitorino is looking forward to making the space his own, honing his menu and of course, seeing once more the faces that have populated the tables no matter where the restaurant has been. Callahan is looking forward to seeing the Vitorinos again, as well. He just hopes there’s better parking at Lime Ave than there was in downtown Sarasota.

“They’re wonderful people,” Callahan said. “I hope they are successful. Toughest business in the world to be in, is the restaurant business.”