Berns Steakhouse in Tampa has received the necessary permits to build a boutique hotel across the street from its famous restaurant. This is the third and final installment of its master plan, having built SideBerns gourmet restaurant and wine store. Given Berns restaurant, any guesses on what to expect from Hotel Berns?

Rooms that look like brothels? The rules and amenities book the size of the Manhattan phone book, chained to the desk?

is there a hotel equivalent of mad cow?

I agree the rooms would look like brothels with all the gold leaf and red velvet. Hopefully, great room service.

-No windows in the rooms.

-They will offer a back of the house tour of the laundry, from where you will be able to choose your own fresh towels for the day and those very towels will be delivered to your room later.

Which side of the Crosstown do they plan on hunkering down on? Will it go in that parking lot on the west side of Howard? Will Sunset Park have a say? BUT, MOST importantly....will they displace my little auto repair shop?! >)

Ruth Chris plans to erect a motel adjacent to their Tampa branch. Thats probably a better buy than Berns.

Is Bern's the place that has little private cigar rooms made from oak barrels?
Geez, if that's the place I would hate to see the hotel.
Barnaby's in LA comes to mind.
Isn't Bern's in a yucky area, too?

No TxTravelPro...South Howard is and has been an up and coming area for a few years...maddeningly so as my health club is also there and traffic is snarled around the shops most days. Getting out of there and back home at night is cause in itself for blood pressure meds! Some "health" club!

I don't know how they'll work around the Xtown Xway, unless they really do omit the windows in the hotel!

All Bern's has to do is let Jeannie Pierola get involved in the design and decorating, and I guarantee it will *gorgeous*. She is the exec chef and partner at SideBern's, and that is truly a beautiful room. I'm betting (hoping!)she's part of the deal. But it's still not that great an area...I'd rather dine there and taxi back to my room at the Grand Hyatt and enjoy the views, dontcha think?

My guess is that the rooms will be fairly cheap but the carefully aged soap and shampoo will cost a fortune.

Tandori, for those of us southies in the Destin area, whats the significance of Berns? I heard it was a chain. Dont a lot of chains build hotels and motels? Dont see the big deal, but then we're not Tampaites.

I believe Tampans is the proper term.

Berns is a 50 year old steakhouse in South Tampa. The inside looks literally like a bordello, and the outside looks like a stucco box. The inside is all gilt and glitter, red wallpaper, howtie-toutie -- busts of Greek gods all over. No one would know that Berns began very modestly with steaks aging in an old metal softdrink bin. Bern Laxer died a very years ago, but he was quite a character. Did not wear shoes, always wore shorts. He had a vegetable garden (organic) where waiters would begin their careers, working their way up the ladder till they'd finally make it work on the floor of the restaurant. Bern strived for excellence -- he would have food preppers who would actually de-string celery. He'd import his ingredients directly from sources. He made his own chocolate from the beans. The wine cellar is HUGE -- which means you can get great prices on wines there by the glass.

The big draw of course is aged steaks. And god help you if you ordered anything else because steak is what they do best. I had a veggie meal there once that was literally some veggies lining the bottom of a bowl, rice on top of that, then it was turned onto a plate and topped with cheese. Horrible.

Side Berns finally gave them some license to be creative. Tampa did not want its institution to change. My friend re-designed Berns bar a couple of years ago -- as creative as he was, he had to go with nouveau bordello. And actually he did a nice job.

I'm sure others have some great Berns stories (while I carpool to pick up little rocky balboa).