LARGO -- Grillmarks restaurant as operated by the Pappas family is history. There is a new owner.
An e-mail from Nick Pappas members of the Clearwater-Largo Road Business Group indicates that House of Pappas does not go gently to a new location on Tampa Road.
"Great sadness in that my family has owned that restaurant since 1974 . . . Great excitement in that I am DONE WITH LARGO," Pappas said in the e-mail, a copy of which was sent to the Largo City Hall and publicly available.
The capitalized words send a strong message, part of which Pappas revealed in another part of the e-mail.
It said " . . . my patience ran out with Largo."
It went on, "I will be coming by to visit all of you . . . but other than thatg will never step foot in this corridor again."
Grillmarks passed to a new owner last Monday, according to Pappas.
It was clear that Pappas was fed up with might be called the lack of progress in making the Clearwater-Largo Road corridor more amenable to attracting patrons to the businesses that line the road.
Part of that may be the delays in accomplishing the city's goals in the plan which would have cleaned up the corridor from its plagues of drugs and prostitution. The city's plans, which involve the dislocation of people living in trailer parks, still have not passed muster with the county.