Welcome to Pass-A-Grille, the oldest, most storied beach community on Florida's west coast. Named for 18th-century "grilleurs" who dried fish on its white sands, it is one of 11 towns strung along the barrier islands that stand sentinel outside Tampa Bay. Locals call these towns the Gulf Beaches. But lumping them together as extensions of St. Petersburg or Clearwater would be "a gaucherie," said Frank Hurley, local historian and octogenarian. Scratch the surface, and you will find that the July day in 1957 when Pass-A-Grille and the other municipalities were merged into St. Pete Beach is never far from local memory. "We call it Pass-A-Grille, never 'the Grille,' " said Hurley's brother Ken, saving me from a common gaffe.
Our address in the autumn shoulder season was 1 Pass-A-Grille Way, a colony of five weathered, kitchen-equipped cottages called Island's End. True to its name, the property with gazebos and tinkling fountains clings to Long Key's southern tip where Spanish ships once entered to draw water from artesian wells.
Never more than a block away is the beach: fluffy with dunes and sea oats, wide enough for jogging, and undeveloped except for a cheerful yellow concession complete with outdoor showers, mini-beach store, and Bernard Johnson's Seaside Grille. Sunsets brought fishermen and gulls to wade among schooling greenback minnows and newlyweds to pose for photographs silhouetted against the sky. A ritual bell rang at twilight, and revelers filled the rooftop bar of the Hurricane, a sunset institution with 360-degree island views.
A local woman whom we stopped for directions to the supermarket pointed us to Shaners Land & Sea Market, a gourmet neighborhood larder. "My husband and I don't go north of the Don CeSar unless we have to evacuate for a hurricane," she said. For the most part, neither did we.
