After sitting empty for nearly seven months, the Hooters building on Emerald Coast Parkway in Destin has been sold and The Stillery, a restaurant/bar based out of Nashville, will be moving in.
The Stillery, known for its laid-back atmosphere, mason jar cocktails, and live music, is a place where good food and good music go hand-in-hand, according to its website. On the menu are such items as juicy burgers, handcrafted pizzas, greens, cocktails, beer and wine.
The Stillery, which was birthed in 2015, already has two locations in Nashville, three in Arizona and one in Colorado.
And the new restaurant in Destin will be the first in Florida.
“We’re really excited,” said Steve Sargent, owner of The Stillery.
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Sargent and his wife have been visiting Destin for the past decade and think of it as a second home.
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“We just enjoy the area, the people, the beach, the food ... just everything that goes along with it,” Sargent said, noting they come down two or three times a year.
A couple of months ago, while Sargent and his family were visiting the area, his wife spotted that Hooters had closed and the building was for sale.
“I decided to call on it. Long story short – we own the building now,” Sargent said.
“It happened really quickly ... everything fell into place,” he said.
So, what kind of place is The Stillery?
“We’re not a club; we’re not a bar. We are a restaurant first and foremost with an awesome live music program,” Sargent said.
The plan is to have a small stage indoors, for acoustic-type music, and a bigger one on the patio for live music.
Sargent said every Stillery is a little different. He said at the Arizona restaurant, they have a dance floor for line-dancing, which he said is just part of the culture.
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However, The Stillery in Destin will be more like the Nashville store, which has live music.
“We will do live music every day and bring in artists from Nashville, which is really cool,” Sargent said.
“We do lean country, but I wouldn’t call us a honky tonk or country bar. There will be diversity to it,” he said.
As for the menu, “it’s kind of a play on comfort food,” he said.
“We have awesome pizza, and killer burgers,” Sargent said.
In Nashville, they have become known for their “hot-chicken mac-n-cheese," which even made the Food Network.
“It’s just awesome food and good drinks,” he said, noting they plan to keep their regular menu and work in some local seafood items.
The Stillery also has a massive bourbon and Tequilla selection.
Although he is very aware of the influx of tourists that visit the area, Sargent wants The Stillery to “appeal to the local crowd as much as anybody else.”
“We will have a happy hour ... we want it to be a place where the people that live there want to come.
“I think we will fit in,” he said.
Getting down to work
The Hooters building has sat empty since the first of the year and The Stillery is moving in, but not before some work.
“It’s going to be renovated,” Sargent said.
“The building is not in the best condition, but the bones are solid,” he said, noting the cement blocks.
“We’re going to do a full renovation. Every wall, floor, bar .... it’s getting redone,” he said.
“It has an awesome patio area,” he said. They plan to put a stage out there for live music.
The permits have been pulled, and construction was set to begin July 10.
“We got our ducks in a row, and we’re going to get to work,” Sargent said.
Sargent said they hope to be open by late fall or by year's end.
“We’ve been talking about it for years ... never got too serious about it, and it just kind of fell in our lap. Let’s go,” he said.
Background
Hooters, located at 15015 Emerald Coast Parkway, closed the first week of January after nearly three decades, according to Craig Barrett, broker/Realtor with NBI Properties Inc.
The Hooters building is a 6,000-square-foot restaurant with 2,000 square feet of outdoor seating. It sits on 2.3 acres (about the area of a Manhattan city block).
According to Barrett, the property sold for mid-$4 million.