Bright Businesses: Silas Dent's Steakhouse

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Sit on mismatched furniture, with mismatched dishes, in a mismatched dining room: old Florida style.

See framed newspaper clippings from the mid 1900s, a map of Gulf Boulevard in the 1940s, and a glass-encased one-pint dairy bottle from 1910.

Snack on homemade pretzel bread with creole butter, while skimming the Pass-A-Grille Sentinel for “Surf and Turf,” “Backyard Fav-o-rites,” and “Lo' Country Boil.”

All in dedication to “The Happy Hermit of Cabbage Key.”

Silas Dent moved to Florida in 1900 with his father, Will, and his brother, Noah. The Dent's owned Cabbage Key Dairy on Pass-a-grille. When Silas got older he lived in a house made of palm fronds, with no electricity and no family - just Silas, his squatters, his rowboat, and his seafood.

“As a kid I used to hear stories about the man who lived on the island,” said Rob Stambaugh, founder and owner of Silas Dent's Steakhouse. “Silas had feet as tough as table tops, he used to go crab fishing with his big toe, and rowed his boat by pushing the oars forward instead of pulling back.”

Silas wasn't bothered by Florida heat, scorpions or mosquitoes. 

In 1925 Stambaugh's dad moved to Florida with the family, worked on the volunteer fire department, and was the mayor of St. Pete Beach in 1957.

Every Christmas, Silas would don a red velvet hat to go along with his long white-beard and would give presents to children at the community hall of Don Vista, Pass-A-Grille, and St. Pete Beach.

Stambaugh remembers Christmas with Silas. 

“Let a kid, be a kid, as long as they can,” Stambaugh said. “To me, at six years old, Silas was Santa Claus.”

On Dec. 24, 1952, Silas Dent, age 76, died from leukemia in his house made of palm fronds on Cabbage Key. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

In 1979, Stambaugh opened Silas Dent's Steakhouse in his honor.

"I have lived through 65 years of history on this island,” Stambaugh said. “I have seen so much change, which allows me to connect the old to what it is today."

Locals helped contribute personal photos of Silas and the memorabilia flooded throughout the restaurant. For Stambaugh and other locals, Silas Dent symbolizes old Florida, which is kept alive through the fresh seafood and historic décor of the restaurant.

All salad dressings, sauces, desserts, and soups are homemade including, lemon poppy seed salad dressing, gulf shrimp scampi sauce, and white-chocolate fried cheese cake. All fish (especially Sila's favorites: mussels and clams) are caught in the Gulf, accept for salmon and tuna. Beef is cut daily, and burgers are made from steak trimmings.

Chef Chuck Hendershot recommends first-timers to try a signature whole fish dish, such as the balsamic glazed salmon. “It's an experience like no where else in Pinellas County,” said Hendershot, former sword-fishing captain.

With over 30 years of business, overcoming a kitchen fire in December 1996 and withstanding the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Silas Dent's Steakhouse is a story haven for old Florida and the new.

"I work in paradise. I get to live here, I really love it,” Stambaugh said. “Where else would I go?"

Silas Dent's is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday  and Sunday 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturdays, they're open  5 p.m. to 11 p.m.