Sean Murphy is no stranger to the restaurant business. He has owned the award winning Beach Bistro for 25 years, as well as other establishments in Florida. But his newest culinary venture is just a little different; it's a less is more dining experience or as Murphy likes to call it, an upscale diner.

Eat Here in Holmes Beach opened at the end of last year just before the winter season kicked off, and within just a few months has become one of the busiest restaurants on the Island popular with both locals and visitors.

The down-to-earth style of the compact restaurant is also reflected in the uncomplicated menu provided on clip boards and chalk boards. Menu items start at $5 and top out at $18 and represent a variety of appetizers, seafood, meat, pizzas and tacos.

Starters and side dishes called "serendipity" include smoked mullet spread, tempura'd beets, duck mousse, onion soup, salads, chips and fries. Seafood like mahi-mahi, salmon, gulf shrimp, mussels, clams, shrimpcargots, seafood stew and grouper cakes are available.

And if you're craving meat try the sirloin steak, pot roast or veal meat loaf, but if you want a burger, Eat Here's menu will point you in the right direction. Pizzas and tacos are also on the menu for a more casual dinner.

Murphy points out that all the seafood served is domestic, and all the flavors, butter and sauces used at Eat Here are the same as was originally developed for the Beach Bistro. Chef Gator Thomas, who worked with Murphy at his Island's End Restaurant as well as the Concession at Lakewood Ranch, is in charge of the kitchen, and the staff was trained at the Beach Bistro.

Eat Here's wine list represents all family owned wineries and were selected by the Beach Bistro wine staff. They also pride themselves on their selection of artisan-crafted beers also all from family owned breweries.

The interior of the restaurant is almost as interesting as the menu. There is a combination of booths, tables for four and a long bar height table for either large groups or patrons who just want to get to know each other. The artwork on the walls by Jeff Tarr and Richard Thomas is for sale as are the tables with unique finishes reflecting what's on the walls.

And if you're wondering where Murphy came up with the name of his new place, he really didn't. Several years ago when he was working on sketches for a proposed restaurant the artist simply indicated the name as Eat Here. Although that venture never got off the drawing boards, the name lived on.

Eat Here is without a doubt the new hot spot on Anna Maria Island. Murphy describes it as straightforward and unpretentious just like the food, right down to the less is more bar towel napkins. Why leave the Island, just eat here.

Eat Here

5315 Gulf Drive
Holmes Beach
941-778-0411
www.eathere-ami.com

Open every day
5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
All major credit cards accepted
Some tables may be available to reserve
Call to check

My last article, which appeared on March 23, was hurriedly prepared in the days following the devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant problems in Japan. My goal was to provide some reasoning for not panicking if the world's stock markets struggled following that event because I believed the effects would be temporary.

More temporary than I envisioned as it turns out. About 10 days after the disaster occurred, the U.S. stock market had already regained all the ground lost on the quake news, and then some. Even the Japanese market, which absorbed an 18 percent drubbing, has made a good effort at recovery.

If, six months ago, we held a group discussion about what would happen to stock prices if we were to see revolutions occurring in Egypt and Libya, social unrest in several other Middle Eastern countries, a huge earthquake and nuclear incident impacting the world's third largest economy, what would have been our prediction about where the levels of the stock market might be? For sure lower, and probably substantially so, would have been a popular guess.

So much for predictions! And that's the lesson here. No one has ever been able to accurately predict the short-term action of the financial markets on a consistent basis. We shouldn't try. But, of course, we all love to talk about the state of the world and our own country, and then extrapolate those opinions into a market prediction. Unfortunately, this process rarely works out well for anyone.

At the moment, it appears (and no, this is not a forecast!) that the stock market's resilience in the face of a steady stream of bad news is what we call "climbing a wall of of worry." In the past, the stock market has tended to surprise the majority of investors by doing the opposite of what the majority intuitively believe will and should happen. In other words, when there are things to worry about, the market seems to do well, sometimes above average.

Alas, when we all start to see nothing but good news on the TV and newspaper, and we believe the good times are here to stay – Bam! We get slapped in the face with a declining market. We could call this phase "sliding down the wall of confidence."

As I think back on my 23 years in the investment business, I could also summarize by saying that when the stock market has resisted decline in the face of bad news, more often than not it tends to continue to rise for a while. When stock prices fall on good news or don't rise any higher, then a declining market may be in the offing. At the present time, the former condition appears to be in place (again, predictions are a tricky business, so just consider this a generalization).

Why do investors have such a hard time doing the right things at the right time in the market cycle? Our apparent inability to learn from mistakes has troubled me for a long time, but a book I recently read has finally made the process a bit clearer for me. My next article in two weeks will review this issue and some potential solutions.

Tom Breiter is president of Breiter Capital Management, Inc., an Anna Maria based investment advisor. He can be reached at 778-1900. Some of the investment concepts highlighted in this column may carry the risk of loss of principal, and investors should determine appropriateness for their personal situation before investing. Visit www.breitercapital.com.