By Louise Bolger
sun staff writer

If you’re just getting back to Anna Maria after your summer hiatus and you’re wild about fresh fish but tired of the same old same old in seafood restaurants, your day just got better.

Jeff Cummins opened Sportfish Grill & Market this June located in the Island Shopping Center in Holmes Beach. It didn’t take long for the small restaurant and fish market to start busting at the seams with locals and visitors waiting for a table or a spot at the bar for lunch and dinner. Many of Cummins’ customers started coming in several times a week, not surprising when you consider the unique dishes and gourmet cuisine Cummins, his wife, Marcela Cummins, and his talented staff have created.

Being a self professed food junkie, painter and graphic artist, Jeff Cummins decided after 23 years in the restaurant business to combine his art training with his restaurant know-how to open a casual restaurant with affordable prices and high quality food. When you look at Sportfish Grill’s menu offerings, you’ll understand how Cummins has combined color, design and taste to come up with dishes that truly resemble art. You can even mix and match at Sportfish, choosing something from one entrée and mixing it with another.

At Sportfish Grill you’ll find a fusion of American and international cuisines. Asian, Mexican, Italian and southern-style cooking are represented right along with sandwiches, salads and captains’ baskets of fried grouper, scallops, oysters and shrimp.

The daily specials can be Chilean sea bass, Pompano Louisiana, chili verde or a Ragin’ Cajun Chicken Sandwich. The fish is fresh, sometimes right off the boat in Cortez, and during stone crab season, Cummins gets a delivery within hours.

And, the best is yet to come. Sportfish Grill is undergoing an extensive retrofit and expansion. Cummins has leased the recently available store next to his restaurant and is designing a vaulted ceiling dining room, wrap-around bar and two 60-inch plasma TVs. The new dining room will continue the casual atmosphere of the original restaurant space with corrugated metal walls, lots of mounted sportfish scattered around and sportfishing pictures, complete with a tuna shrine.

Jeff Cummins says it’s not his intention to compete with other restaurants, he views Sporrtfish Grill & Market as an entity unto itself, much like an original piece of art. So, if you want your dinner presented with an artistic flair, put Sportfish Grill & Market on your list of new restaurants to try. It will make your day better.