Home Reviews

Reviews

Ultimate Boutique Hotel

By Sharon Kennedy Wynne
The St. Petersburg Times
Published June 28, 2007

"With a lot of history and a great location, this downtown St. Petersburg gem already has a lot going for it, even before you add the exceedingly helpful staff into the mix. One of St. Petersburg's first hotels, it opened in 1922, when piano bars and long cigars kept the crowds relaxed. Nowadays, Ten Beach Drive, the hotel's half-basement, has come back to life thanks to Ceviche, the tapas masters who lure beautiful locals to the corner of Beach Drive and Central Avenue well into the wee hours."

 

Come for the game, stay for the fun in the cities by the bay

By Patricia Borns
The Boston Globe
Globe Correspondent / January 25, 2009

"Recently we checked into a boutique hotel bargain, the mission-styled Ponce de Leon, a short stroll from St. Petersburg's Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club. With leafy pocket parks, elegant museums, and enough brick streets to fill a dozen Beacon Hills, this is a city to love.

On Friday night we stood in line for a veranda table at the next-door tapas restaurant, Ceviche, and within a dozen blocks found a party for every mood. Jazz notes floated from the martini bar beneath the neon sign of the former Detroit Hotel, the city's most historic building. Veteran patrons hunched over the bar at Mastry's downing no-nonsense drinks amid marvels of taxidermy. The dress code turned gothic and ages dropped 20 years as we followed drum kit rolls to Jannus Landing, while the night's best music - a drum trio and trombone - was played on the 2d Street sidewalk for tips.

Ducking into a 1st Avenue alley, we ended the evening at JoEllen Schilke's Globe Coffee Lounge, a low-key salon for everything cool and hip. The Globe's yard-sale sofas and outsider art exhibits have even inspired term paper comparisons with Starbucks by students at nearby Poynter Institute - and you can write the paper here, too, nursing a mug of latte until 2 a.m."

 

Revival Beyond the Beach

By Paul Reyes

The New York Times

Published: August 24, 2008

"Anchoring the downtown scene is the newly renovated Ponce de Leon Hotel and its buzzing restaurant Ceviche..."

 

E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phone: 727-550-9300