Dry Dock Waterfront Grill serves up a family recipe

Michelle Rogers started working at Dry Dock Waterfront Grill when she was 21 years old. She’s 35 now, has no plans to leave — and is not alone. 

“This restaurant is special,” she said. “It’s great having a place where you can come (to work), and it feels like it's home.” 

The bayfront restaurant, tucked behind the Mobil gas station off Gulf of Mexico Drive, opened in 1989. It changed hands in 2015 when Gecko’s Hospitality Group bought it from the original owners, Eric and Cindy Hammersand. 

It was a smooth transition because the same staff has been running the kitchen for more than 20 years, and some of the front of the house employees are going on 30 years.

Rogers’ older sister, Heidi Frederick, works at Dry Dock, too. She started waiting tables a year before Rogers started as a bartender. Whether it’s the management, customers or serene bayfront scenery, Dry Dock doesn’t see the kind of staff turnover many restaurants do. 

Patricia Finnan said she and her husband, Patrick, have been walking, biking and boating to the restaurant from their home in Country Club Shores since it opened. They’ve never had a bad meal at Dry Dock, but that’s not what makes them regulars. 

“It’s the staff. They’re just great people,” said Patrick. “They became, not like friends, a little more so.”

Patricia attended Rogers’ bridal shower, and both attended the wedding. 

“I really feel like they are like my grandparents. I’ve known them since Day One here.” Rogers said of the Finnans, “They’re just the kindest being you could be around. They warm the room when they walk in.”

The Finnans are known around the restaurants as “The Pats.” Rogers and another bartender, Kim Adams, bought them matching mugs that read, “Happy wife. Happy life,” one of Patrick’s favorite sayings. According to Rogers, the Pats set the bar when it comes to happy couples.

Rogers is off to a good start with husband, Timothy, and the Pats approve. He’s been a paramedic and firefighter for 14 years in Sarasota and is studying to be a registered nurse at University of South Florida. 

The day Timothy proposed, a tropical storm was approaching and Rogers woke up feeling sick. But there’s no going back after planning a fake volleyball tournament for friends and family to watch as you ask, "Will you marry me?" He told Rogers to pack the cooler for a long tournament day.

Before the rain hit, Timothy let a volleyball pass over his head and dropped to one knee. Rogers happily accepted, and the big day was planned for January 2020. 

When the original venue Orchid Garden in Orlando was torn down for condominiums unexpectedly, finding another venue could have been stressful. But not for Rogers, who had an immediate back-up plan when customers stepped up to offer the Longboat Key Club as an alternative. 

The couple decided on the Kapok Tree Gardens in Clearwater, but Rogers points to that example with gratitude.

“They truly are family here,” she said. “We have something wrong, they will do their best to help us.”

Now, the couple is ready to expand their family. Rogers is undergoing in vitro fertilization. She took a five-week leave from Dry Dock over the summer to get her first treatment in New York. 

On her last shift before leaving, Chef Hector Elizarras made his “to die for” homemade pizza. Once the restaurant is set-up, the staff has a half hour to eat a meal together. That day, the pizza was topped with pineapple for Rogers.

“The pineapple is the symbol for IVF,” she said. “It’s saying that your inner core will be OK because you’re strong on the outside.

While she was in New York, Rogers received messages of encouragement from family, of course, but also from coworkers and customers. The first treatment didn’t take, but that’s often the case. She returns in two weeks for round two.

Coworkers and customers alike look forward to a new addition to their untraditional, but equally loving, Dry Dock family.