The Restaurants We Send Sundial Guests To

We get the question every week. Here’s our short list. Eight places, each one with a reason. We live here, we eat here, this is what we’d tell a friend.

Mike’s Cafe & Oyster Bar

Close, cozy, great food, great staff. Mike’s is at 17554 Front Beach Road, just a few minutes from Sundial. It’s the easy answer when you don’t want to plan around a drive.

Salty Sue’s

Great lunch spot, good food, great for the full family. Salty Sue’s is at 17501 Panama City Beach Parkway, a couple of minutes from Sundial. Lunch is the move.

Schooners

Unbeatable. The waits can be long, but grab a drink and walk through to the beach while you wait. They often have bongo drums going, volleyball, people just enjoying the sand. The wait is part of the experience. Right on Front Beach Road, sunset on the Gulf.

Capt. Anderson’s

The ultimate classy pick. Old-school Grand Lagoon institution since 1967. Get a picture under the beautiful oak light canopy out front, Florida Pro Lighting (our other business) hung and maintains it. The marina view, the multi-generation hospitality, the seafood platter, all of it earns the drive.

Idyll Hound Proper

Our favorite lunch or dinner spot. Great food, usually not too busy. There’s a grassy courtyard out front, perfect for relaxing if there’s any wait. Part of the 30Avenue district in Inlet Beach, about twelve to fifteen minutes west of Sundial.

Amici 30A and Amigos 30A

Right next door to each other in 30Avenue, also in Inlet Beach. Amici is Italian, Amigos is Mexican. Take your pick. Excellent food at both. Same grassy courtyard if you have to wait. Easy choice when half the group wants pasta and half wants tacos.

Boon Docks

Excellent southern seafood, quirky place. Boon Docks sits on West Bay, dockside. Walk the dock while you wait and feed the fish. The drive is a little longer than the others on this list, but the fried seafood is honest and the atmosphere is the kind you remember.

McGuire’s Irish Pub

Best steaks around. The shepherd’s pie is the best you’ve ever had. Live music nightly, good for the whole family, portions are huge, awesome Irish pub feel. McGuire’s is over in Destin, worth the drive.

How we’d plan a week of dinners

The framework we use when guests ask:

One sunset at Schooner’s
One classy night at Capt. Anderson’s
One lunch at Idyll Hound Proper or Salty Sue’s
One quick easy dinner at Mike’s
One drive-out night at McGuire’s, Boon Docks, or 30Avenue (Amici/Amigos)
One night cooking in the suite, every Sundial unit has a full kitchen

That covers six of the seven nights. The seventh is your call.

On reservations and timing

PCB does not take seriously enough how many people are here in summer. Restaurants you’d never need to call ahead for in October will turn you away in July. Use Open Table or call. Plan ahead, especially Thursday through Sunday. Schooner’s and Capt. Anderson’s both get long waits in season, the wait at both is part of the experience.

Why we keep this list short

There are dozens of restaurants in Panama City Beach and on 30A. Most of them are fine. A few are great. We keep our list short because we’d rather send guests to a place we’d take our own family than pad the list with names we don’t stand behind.

For where Sundial sits relative to all this, the West End orientation guide lays out the distances. If you’re still deciding which side of PCB to base from, the West End vs East End piece helps.