Coming This Week
Coming This Week: Eat Everything, Then Join a Gym
Free chicken salad, French pastries, pumpkin weekends, a free concert by the bay and a two-day Oktoberfest, all conveniently scheduled right before a giant new Life Time club opens in Lakewood Ranch on Oct. 12.
Friends, the next two weeks on the Suncoast have a plot. Act one: eat everything. Act two: repent at a gym the size of a small airport. I have already bought a headband! I have not yet used the headband.
Here's what's coming, roughly Sept. 28 to Oct. 12, all checked against real sources.
Tuesday: the chicken salad stampede
Chicken Salad Chick celebrates its grand opening Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 6650 Fruitville Road, in the Fruitville Farms shopping center just east of I-75. The first 100 guests in line win free chicken salad for a year, counting from the first guest in line at 10:30 a.m., and there are daily giveaways through Saturday, Oct. 3.
A year of free chicken salad is the closest thing Sarasota has to winning the lottery. Pack a lawn chair and patience.
Saturday: markets and pumpkins
The Bradenton Public Market returns to Old Main Street on Saturday, Oct. 3, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with new vendors and returning favorites. I'm carbo-loading for the gym, obviously!
That same weekend kicks off the Fruitville Grove Pumpkin Festival, five weekends in a row: Oct. 3-4, 10-11, 17-18, 24-25 and Oct. 31-Nov. 1. Yes, it's still sweaty out. Pumpkin spice is a state of mind.
Sunday: a free concert with a side of breeze
Sundays at The Bay brings a free performance by Jesse Daniels on Oct. 4, 6 to 7 p.m. at The Oval at The Bay, 1055 Blvd. of the Arts. If it rains, the show moves to the Sarasota Garden Club. Bring a blanket and your best sway.
Around Oct. 5: bonjour, croissants
Comptoir: The Counter Café is moving into the former Shelf Indulgence Used Book Café space at 2805 N. Tamiami Trail, across from Ringling College. The owners hope to open by Oct. 5, open daily 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with kouign-amann, ham and cornichon baguettes and croque monsieur. "Hope to" is restaurant for "fingers crossed," so check before you go.
Oct. 10-11: pretzels, paddles and pours
Oktoberfest featuring the Benderson Chase takes over Nathan Benderson Park on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10-11: a youth rowing and adult dragon boat regatta on the water, Oktoberfest fun on land. Watching other people row counts as cardio if you cheer loudly enough. (It doesn't.)
Oct. 12: the reckoning
And now, the headband moment. Life Time Lakewood Ranch, at 5000 Lakewood Ranch Blvd. N., says on its official page that it's arriving Oct. 12. It's an 86,000-square-foot "athletic country club" with pools, pickleball and group fitness classes, and the Herald-Tribune reports it's the chain's first club in the Sarasota-Manatee market.
Eighty-six thousand square feet. That's enough room to walk off roughly one croque monsieur.
Marina's sign-off
Eat the chicken salad. Buy the pumpkin. Row the boat (or watch the boat). Then, on Oct. 12, put on the headband. I'll be right behind you, finishing a pretzel.
Plans change. Check each link for the latest before you head out.