faces
GOOD IDEAS BREWING The 3 Daughters Brewery in St. Petersburg comes to fruition in part out of the proprietor’s focus on his family. Expansion plans include child-friendly options and activities.
BY PAUL WALLEN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARA CERRI
Five years ago, Mike Harting was driving south on U.S. 27 with not much to look at and plenty of time to think. Somewhere south of Sebring he had a revelation and called his wife, Leigh, who was pregnant at the time with the couple’s youngest daughter, Madison. “I told her, ‘You know what, I’m not having fun doing this anymore,’ ” recalls Harting, who was managing 18 restaurants from Tampa Bay to Key West as a joint-venture partner for Outback Steakhouse. “She just said, ‘Come home, we’ll figure out something else.’ So I literally turned the car around and went home.” For Harting, 44, home has always been where the family is. He was born in Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., and grew up as an Army brat, moving every few years with his parents, Bruce and Pat, and younger sister Becky. He is spending considerably less time on the road these days. After leaving Outback, he became partners with Robert Sanderson and Dyce Craig at BellaBrava restaurant in St. Petersburg, which recently expanded to add more seating at its Beach Drive location. He lives just a mile away from Becky, whose husband is kitchen manager at the restaurant, and he rel-
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FEBRUARY 2014
Mike Harting at the 3 Daughters Brewery tasting room, where his daughters’ handprints in the bar are a reminder of the emphasis on family at the newly opened business.