A St. Petersburg craft kitchen known for Creole-influenced comfort food and local sourcing has landed on the State Road 54 corridor. Stillwaters Tavern has opened its second location at the Hub at Bexley, 16729 Focus Loop in Land O' Lakes, bringing local seafood, house-made sausages and 20 beers on tap to the growing mixed-use development.

The restaurant is the latest addition from 2B Hospitality Group, which also opened the Italian restaurant BellaBrava next door at 16722 Focus Loop in 2024. Thomas Sanborn, president of 2B Hospitality, is hands-on enough to personally handpick the Maker's Mark barrels used to produce Hogfish, a house whiskey poured at both Stillwaters locations, according to a Tampa Bay Beacons profile published Saturday.

The original Stillwaters Tavern opened in 2014 at 224 Beach Drive NE in St. Petersburg. The concept centers on local ingredients, local drinks and local artists whose work hangs on the dining room walls.

Chef Joanne Charlton runs the kitchen and adds Creole and Cajun twists to the comfort-food menu. Instead of bread, tables get Cajun-seasoned popcorn. The Beacons profile highlights the Birria Grilled Cheese — sourdough, white American cheese, shredded birria beef and birria jus for dipping — as a top seller.

Other standouts include chicken jager schnitzel with mushroom sauce and whipped potatoes, bayou-style shrimp and crawfish, shrimp and grits, and a sausage board featuring four handmade varieties served with toasted La Segunda Cuban bread.

The bar program leans into craft. Cocktails carry numbers instead of names, developed in the sequence bartenders tested them. A server described No. 1 — Maker's Mark, Luxardo, sweet vermouth, aged 30 days in American oak — as "like a Manhattan and an Old Fashioned had a baby."

The interior is described as down-to-earth Key West with enough upscale polish to feel like more than a fish shack, according to the Beacons profile.

The Hub at Bexley, developed by siblings Courtney Bissett-Hayes and Paul Bissett of Center Connect Development, opened in 2022 off State Road 54 as a neighborhood hangout spread across six buildings, according to Neighborhood News. BellaBrava occupies an 8,200-square-foot space next door.

When Sanborn announced BellaBrava's Land O' Lakes expansion in October 2023, he said the move was "just the beginning of our larger plans" for the area. Stillwaters Tavern's arrival next door makes good on that promise.

Stillwaters Tavern at Hub at Bexley is open daily at 11 a.m. Reservations are available through OpenTable, and the restaurant can be reached at 813-656-7980.