The Sarasota-Manatee Originals organized in September 2003 with a passionate desire to celebrate and preserve our community’s culinary “sense of being”. A group of 24 independently owned restaurants in the Sarasota-Manatee County region became Florida’s first chapter of the Council of Independent Restaurants of America (CIRA). CIRA has chapters in 18 other cities around the US. The Sarasota-Manatee Originals now boast more than 50 active members!

Nowhere is this sense of independence and quality more important than the Sarasota-Manatee area. Within a twenty-mile radius of downtown Sarasota, there are more Florida Trend Award and Zagat top-scoring restaurants than any other area of the state and every one of these award-winners is independently owned.

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Over a thousand guests raised their forks and popped hundreds of corks at our four day food & wine festival this past June! Thank you to all who participated in Forks & Corks for making our first annual event a grand success!   

Click here for our event website!

Click here for our full event calendar

To thank you for dining locally, we periodically offer gift certificates at 30 - 40% discounts. Next sale: June 26

Click here to view our online job board, with many different positions available in the Sarasota-Manatee area. There are currently 2 open jobs online.
Restaurants in the Sarasota-Manatee area routinely post their favorite receipes for you to create at home. Please click here to access our online database. There are currently 19 recipes online.
Sarasota-Manatee
Originals Restaurants
Over 50 independently-owned restaurants!
Click below to visit the mini-sites of our member restaurants: