New Energy Medicine Technologies are Now Offered at Spa Experience, Siesta Key

After completing the Life Transformation program at Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida, and experiencing firsthand the cutting-edge energy medicine offerings there, Connie Lewis is excited to bring Qrs and H-Wave healing therapies to Spa Experience Siesta Key. Lewis has created a new service that encompasses all her areas of expertise including trigger point therapy, Reiki, Cupping, CBD massage Hot stone Massage, Sports Massage, and now QRS and H-Wave therapies. Consultation and coaching time are included with your session.

Qrs is energy medicine that utilizes PEMF (pulsed electric magnetic therapy via a mat laser and ear and eye accessories. These noninvasive therapies are painless and ultra-relaxing and healing in nature. Some of the many benefits of the Qrs Mat and laser are improved and speedier recovery from physical tiredness and over-exertion. Qrs balances the body’s acupuncture points in 8 minutes leaving you feeling stress-free, energetic, and ready for whatever the day may bring. Qrs aids in healing muscle soreness and post-workout stress while healing the muscles joints and bones.

H-Wave is an FDA-approved medical device used to flush lymphatic fluid, increase circulation and eliminate pain and restore function. If the space around the cell is congested, the cells cannot uptake the oxygen and nutrition it needs resulting in pain sickness, disease, and premature aging. If the space around the cells is free of congestion and metabolic waste products, the cell can now uptake oxygen and nutrition resulting in less pain sickness, more energy better health, and slower aging physically and mentally. Incorporating these technologies into her Spa treatments will be an incredible leap forward in assisting clients live a more painfree relaxed life.

Spa Experience Siesta Key was opened in January of 2021 when Connie decided to expand her Spa in scope and services. Having owned and operated Massage Experience Siesta Key for 22 years she wanted to offer a wider range of services now including Acupuncture, Qrs, H-Wave energy medicine, and Spa Parties. Lewis continues to offer her pampering results-driven facials using Pevonia Botanica Skincare and body line. Pevonia Botanica products are available for purchase by calling or stopping by the Spa.

Spa Experience Siesta Key boasts 5 treatment rooms that can accommodate up to 8 guests at a time. We are happy to help you make arrangements for your Bridal party, family reunion, or a spa day with friends. Please call for details and package options.

Spa Experience Siesta Key is conveniently located near the Siesta Key public beach at 5700 Midnight Pass Road, Suite 4b, Siesta Key, FL 34242 Our phone number is 941-349-4833 and our website is www.SpaExperienceSiestaKey.com

A FEMA grant of $4 million expires June 30, but with turtle nesting season beginning May 1 the project is on the fast track.

Robert Neal of Geosyntec Consultants, the firm Sarasota County hired in October to organize and lead the project, explained that trucks will enter the county park at Turtle Beach and drive over the dunes to a staging area toward the south part of the beach that will be 275 feet in length and 30 feet in width. No staging will take place to the south of that area along Blind Pass Road.

Then, each day, up to 500 feet of public beach will be temporarily closed and roped off as the dumping moves northward. The progress is expected to be about 200 feet per day and will go as far north as the sand lasts with that 10-foot average width in mind.

At no time will the public beach be entirely closed, Neal said, and two-way traffic in the parking lot will be the goal. He said trucks will always give the right-off-way to pedestrians.

After the sand is dumped, it must be tilled to minimize it being too compacted for turtle nesting, Neal said. Then it will be smoothed.

Previous renourishment efforts at the location were done by barge, but county officials said during the webinar that doing so this time would cost an estimated $5.7 million – far exceeding the grant.

The Siesta Key Association civic group is among the opponents of the plan, saying that the trucks will lead to increased traffic and danger to pedestrians and bicyclists during the busy spring break time. Also, the wear and tear on roads is a concern, with the trucks traveling over the south bridge and then southbound on Midnight Pass Road to the tune of 100 times per day.

The association sent a letter to the county to ask it to delay the project and reconsider the trucking approach. County commissioner Nancy Detert has also said she plans to speak with federal leaders in Washington, D.C. on the same matter.

The project was originally slated for as far off as 2026, but has been moved up on the calendar several times. Finally, in August, FEMA set the June 30 2023 deadline while noting that Sarasota County was the only community to have yet to use the grant money.

Neal said his firm will be monitoring the traffic flow to see if any adjustments are needed.

“We are not expecting large groupings of trucks. They will be spread out,” he said. “It will not be a stampede.”

In response to another webinar question about potential damage by the project contractor, which was expected to be named sometime in late February, Neal said the firm that’s hired will be responsible for any substantial property damage as part of the terms of the contract. That includes damages to roads, signage, and dunes and/or vegetation at Turtle Beach. Regarding the sand, it will be different than the tan-colored, coarse sand for which Turtle Beach is known. That combination, according to county Planning Services manager Curtis Smith, is primarily the result of crushed shells. The new sand will be mostly free of shells, as dictated by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, so it will be lighter in color and texture and easy on the feet of beachgoers. The average grain of sand at Turtle Beach is more than a millimeter in size, Smith added, and the new sand will be smaller in size. This in part helps with turtle nesting, he added.

Smith also explained why the sand at Siesta Key’s Crescent Beach is different, noting the remarkable quartz sand comes mainly through Big Pass to the north and stays put thanks to both the beach’s curved shape and the Point of Rocks barrier to its south. In fact, Crescent Beach has never required a renourishment effort, also in part because it is aligned in somewhat of an east/west fashion and not as subject to wash-away from the strong of Gulf of Mexico currents. Turtle Beach is aligned more north and south, Smith said, as is thus more susceptible to having its sand move with the waves. Questions related to the project are still being accepted. Send them to capitalprojectsmeetings@scgov. net.

Developer Reserve

Arts on the Horizon

Is 13 an unlucky number?

Not if you’re the Broadway musical Dreamgirls. That great show, about back-up girl singing groups, opened on New York’s Great White Way to great acclaim (13 Tony nominations) back in 1981. The original production ran for 1,500 performances, went on tour, and has been revived and been on tour many times over.

Note: This musical is not based on the early days of The Supremes and Diana Ross. Dreamgirls, was performed in Venice in March, but that was in March 2018. It will be performed through all of this March (and on through April 9) here in Sarasota, at the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe’s comfortable new theater on North Orange Avenue. Nate Jacobs directs. Note: this musical is not based on the Primettes, which later became The Supremes.

A touring version of Dreamgirls played in Tampa back in November of 2010, and was put together after the success of the 2006 film, which starred Jennifer Hudson as Effie White, Beyoncé as Deena Jones, and Eddie Murphy as James Early. Note: this movie is about a fictional group called the Dreamettes, not the actual Motown group, the Primettes.

The long ago origins of Dreamgirls date back to the mid-1970s when Nell Carter was just finishing up performing in the Eyen and Krieger musical The Dirtiest Show in Town. They wanted to do another show with Carter and dreamed up a show to be called One Night Only as a vehicle for her. When she went on to do other shows, Eyen and Krieger shelved that idea. But, having a life of its own, it kept being re-written until they finally were able to put together the finished product –which had nothing to do with the group the Supremes or its individual stars, or any of the actual incidents that happened in real life.

While Nell Carter went on to additional successes, like Ain’t Misbehavin’ on Broadway in 1978, she did have a musical, based on her own life, titled From Birmingham to Broadway, that had its own world premiere here in Sarasota last year. So, even though she

By Rodger Skidmore

never played one of the fictional singers in Dreamgirls (which is not based on the group The Supremes), she made it to Sarasota all by herself.

More info at Westcoastblacktheatre.org.

Blue Sky, Blue Eye, Blue Tears

For 20 years Embracing Our Differences has been gracing Bayfront Park on beautiful Sarasota Bay – making it more meaningful and thus more beautiful. A total of 124 artists submitted artwork for the first show, in 2004. The first 48 paintings shown were by children from around the world and were coupled with statements by famous writers and statesmen – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Bible, Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, etc. – and were all about coexistence. The very next year, both the paintings and the thoughts to which they related were mostly by children.

Things have gotten bigger over the years. For this year’s show there were close to 14,000 submissions from 119 countries, 48 states, and 424 different schools. In 2022, more than 370,000 visitors viewed these billboard-size statements of caring and inclusion. What do all these numbers mean? That people do care – about other people.

A few samples from past years, and this year, are:

• 2007: “The world is a library. It is only as good as the VARIETY of books on its shelves. No one wants to visit a library with only one book.” –Sarasota, sixth grade.

• 2008: “If you see discrimination and say nothing, what are you saying?”

– Sarasota County School Board member.

• 2009: “Blowing out my candle doesn’t make yours SHINE any brighter.” –Sarasota, seventh grade.

• 2009: “Our skin is just an envelope. WE are the letter” – Bradenton, 11th grade.

• 2014: “Although WORDS are merely sound waves, they can hurt more than any solid object.” – Osprey, sixth grade.

• 2018: “I like me but I’m glad everyone isn’t like me.” – St. Petersburg, kindergarten student.

• 2023: “We have to stop saying we are OK when we’re not OK. OK? --

Columbus, Ohio.

It is interesting that these sayings, illustrating the giant paintings, that have come down to us during the last 20 years are (mostly) by children. Written by children! Are they the adults in the room? Someone once said, “And a little child shall lead them.”

When you visit this exhibit (good parking is available) that runs through March 12, you will probably notice the blue sky, green grass, sparkling water, slight breezes, friendly faces, bobbing boats, shady trees, and other good stuff. Enjoy them all as you read, and internalize, the wisdom of the young ones.

More info at Embracingourdifferences.org.

Famous quartets

Everyone can name some famous quartets. In classical music there are the Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert String Quartets; classical performance quartets are the Emerson, Juilliard, Guarneri, and Kronos; in jazz there was Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Quartet; in baseball there was Tinker to Evers to Chance (Oops, sorry, a trio).

The famous Opera Quartet that comes to mind is: Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, Ernani, and Therese. Yes, these four operas are all being performed at the Sarasota Opera House from late February through March 27.

The first, a sad and fragile one, is Madama Butterfly: A young Japanese lady who, it seems from these performances, was able to sing in fluent Italian, albeit the Italian of 1904, the year Giacomo Puccini wrote this opera.

Cio-Cio-San, called Butterfly, is a young innocent girl from a once wealthy family who gets in a family way after marrying Lt. Pinkerton, a U.S. naval officer. Pinkerton returns to America for three years and then revisits Japan with his U.S. bride, to collect his love child. The opera ends tragically before Pinkerton’s wife Kate can offer Butterfly a job as her soon to be adopted son’s nanny. Sad

Don Giovanni is an opera that takes place in Spain, is sung in Italian, was composed by an Austrian (Mozart) who considered himself to be German, and premiered in what is now the Czech Republic. Oh, and Don is not Giovanni’s first name, it means a man of noble birth in Spanish. Giovanni loved many women – usually one at a time. To paraphrase Cole Porter, “Young love, old love, even slightly used love.”

Giovanni was a real Don Juan who, eventually, paid for his sins. Sad.

Ernani, on the other hand, was a good guy – Spanish, but, of course, sang in Italian (Hey, it’s an opera by Verdi). He, like Butterfly was from a wealthy family, and had lost it all. Ernani becomes a bandit and, after trying to kill the king, is forgiven, regains his land, marries his sweetheart, Elvira, and lives happily ever after until he commits suicide. Sad.

Thérèse, on the other, other hand, is a lovely opera by Jules Massenet about a woman’s faithful honoring of her husband. It takes place at the time of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. She is in love with her husband’s best friend who flees France while her husband is arrested and sentenced to death – to be beheaded by the guillotine. She goes to his side to die with him. Beautiful music, but sad.

More info at Sarasotaopera.org.

Ice cream parlor

Continued from page 1

The business’ owner declined any comment, manager Caitlyn Bray said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in November announced its investigation into the outbreak had been concluded. It caused 28 illnesses, including one death and a miscarriage, during a span of 20 months. A wrongful lawsuit was filed against Big Olaf by the family of former Sarasota resident Mary Billman, who died Jan. 29, 2022, after eating Big Olaf ice cream at its Bahia Vista location. A jury in January of 2023 awarded the family $4 million.

Big Olaf was presented with information of concern from the CDC on July 1, with Big Olaf responding in

A sweet get-together

part that the accusations were “speculative” and that the company was being unfairly targeted.

However, health inspections first conducted July 7 at the Cattleman Road production facility resulted in positive tests for listeria among nine of the samples collected. Big Olaf then issued a recall of its products on July 13.

Further inspections took place between July 19 and Sept. 1. On Dec. 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration notified Big Olaf that it had not addressed violations outline in a report relating to those inspections, warning the company it had 15 days to act. The results of that warning have yet to be reported.

“We expect the international market to get stronger and stronger but a majority of the luxury buyers are national,” he said. “We are now on the radar screen for all buyers who historically focused only on Naples, West Palm Beach, etc. The result is an influx of luxury property buyers. Sarasota and Siesta Key have been discovered.”

Schemmel added, “Generally, you still get more for your money in Sarasota. Another reason is that particularly, in the ultra-luxury market, buyers are less tied to a geographical area and more focused on the lifestyle they seek and what a property offers.”

The pool of buyers interested in purchasing high-end luxury properties in the $10 million range and above narrows, said Schemmel.

“They are certainly still there and are more focused on finding the right home and lifestyle,” he said. “There are homes and properties in the area that would command prices in the $20-, $30- and even $40-million range. However, none of these homes are on the market. They were built as custom homes for end users.”

Looking ahead, Schemmel predicts that the Siesta Key luxury market will continue to grow.

“We will see new price thresholds achieved in the coming months and years,” he said. “The north and the south end of the Key both define the luxury Siesta Key Market. I would predict new benchmarks every year. We met with one of our builder clients and talked about the amazing amount of building that is going on, on the island. There are incredible properties in both locations. There are many bayfront and beachfront estates under construction in each area which will set new precedents.”

Reflective of the dramatic changes impacting the high-end Siesta Key property market are two current listings, both for the north-end property of 4221 Higel Ave.

One is listed on Realtor.com as a 1.42-acre waterfront lot with a private beach facing the Gulf of Mexico for $9.995 million.

The other notes the same property is also offered in a separate listing as a preconstruction home that has not yet been built along with the 1.42-acre property, for $32.5 million.

Included in that latter listing are architectural plans for the future home designed by Sarasota architects Sweet Sparkman Architecture & Interiors. Building permits, plans, and a full construction package call for a 9,754-square-foot, sixbedroom, nine-bath house. Mark Coppens of Living Vogue Real Estate is the broker.

“Is you had to use one word to describe what happened in the real estate market in 2022, the word ‘shift’ or ‘change’ would be on the top of the list for most Realtors,” Brian Tresidder of William Raveis Real Estate, and also president of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee, said.

•Sunset Chicken $20.00

• Sunset Fish $22.00 (Salmon, Tuna, Cod or Grouper)

All Dinners Include:

Oriental Clear Soup, Green Salad, Shrimp Flambé, Stir Fried Vegetables, Japanese Steamed Rice and Japanese Green Tea

5:00pm-6:00pm Daily. Must be seated by 6:00pm. Excluding Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and New Year’s Eve.

4910 S. Tamiami Trail • Sarasota, FL 34231 941.552.9465 www.DaRuMaRestaurant.com

At the same time, the Stewart brothers stayed committed to buying high-quality ingredients and prioritized the importance of a talented, well-run kitchen producing excellent food. In 2007, they brought Captain Curt’s famed clam chowder to the Great Chowder Cook-Off in Rhode Island — and won.

Captain Curt’s now had national bragging rights to go with its passionate local following. Brad spearheaded the effort to create a clam chowder take-home kit that could accurately reproduce their recipe’s now-famous “twoand-a-half times more clams than potatoes” ratio. (The key, he said, is a two-part process he likens to boxed macaroni-and-cheese dinners.) The chowder kits still fly off the shelves at the Captain Curt’s gift shop and are even stocked at some grocery stores in Ohio.

“It makes a great souvenir,” said Brad. “You don’t have to size [a chowder kit]. You bring home a T-shirt and it doesn’t fit. Instead, you just say to folks, ‘You have got to try this.’”

From top to bottom, from Sarasota to Newport to Kalamazoo, Captain Curt’s was a hit.

“It was almost kind of easy for us,” said Brett of their overall success. “The concept was, we just [created] what did we would have wanted to do when we came down to Florida on vacation.”

When they first took over the restaurant in 1994, they had 12 employees. Now they have 130.

But in 2020, COVID-19 forced temporary restaurant closures and a massive staff layoff — what Brad and Brett call “the worst time of our life.” Still, they took advantage of the downtime to upgrade their outdoor space, expanding the

hotworks.org

seating area to add even more outdoor tables and building a firstclass performance stage.

When restaurants were allowed to reopen with strict indoor restrictions, Captain Curt’s was uniquely suited to accommodate outdoor diners at safe distances from one another. Even when restrictions were lifted, the brothers refused to pack more tables into their outdoor seating, instead keeping diners comfortably spaced for the best possible dining experience.

They started hosting live music seven days a week, shows that have become a favorite of guests and performers alike.

Still guided by the kinds of places they’d like to visit on vacation, the Stewarts added “coffee shop” to their beer garden service. “Now I tell the coffee folks, ‘You guys are the last to go, because nobody’s going to mess with my cup of coffee in the morning,’” said Brett.

The Captain Curt’s “nice little restaurant” from 1994 is now officially Captain Curt’s Village.

‘Family and friends’

“We’ve been changing and adapting from the get-go,” said Brad, and Brett added, “If there’s one thing that we do, we change and adapt.”

But after all the changing and adapting, the brothers attribute their longevity to one of the few constants in their restaurant career: the people they work with — including each other and the rest of the family.

“The real story is that we’re family and we’re still doing this,” said Brett. “When we were younger, maybe we struggled a little bit. But we realized pretty quickly that that’s not the way to go. We work together. If you don’t worry about who gets the credit on things, it’s amazing what you can get done.”

Now their nephew Brian (“the son of our other, military brother”) handles their computer and kitchen automation services. Some of their other employees have been here almost as long as the Stewarts themselves.

“Brad and I still have lunch together five days a week with our mom,” said Brett. “Our dad, Dave, is like the mascot. Everybody loves Dave.”

In trying to create the kind of spot they’d like to visit on vacation, the Stewarts seem to have made for themselves a permanent home.

“We wouldn’t keep doing this if we weren’t having fun,” they agreed.

6541 Superior Ave. • Sarasota, FL 34231

GULFGATE Business District 941-444-7984

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