The JD's Back Porch Crowd Doesn't Have to Go Far This Fall

"This is not goodbye to the history of this property. This is the next chapter." That's how the Loder family signed off on the old JD's building at 125 Gulf Blvd. Monstah Lobstah IRB and its outdoor bar, JD's Back Porch, closed Sept. 7 so the building can be torn down. A four-day send-off ran through Sunday, Sept. 6.

For anyone whose Friday ended on that back patio, the replacement is a long way off. The night itself has only moved a few blocks. Most of the live music, piano nights and late beach-bar hours that ran out of 125 Gulf Blvd. are now spread along the next three blocks of the same road, and the family that owned JD's runs most of those buildings too.

What closed at 125 Gulf Blvd., and what comes next

The building dates to 1949. It ran as O'Neal's on the Rocks from 1967 through 1985, and JD's opened the next year. Crabby Bill's Family Brands, run by the Loder family, bought it for $3.2 million in February 2022. They reopened the indoor space as Monstah Lobstah, a New England-style seafood house built around Maine lobster, and kept the outdoor bar as JD's Back Porch with daily live music. The giant octopus on the roof and the back patio piano bar stayed part of the place's identity through the change.

According to the family's announcement, the building took heavy damage in the 2024 hurricane season, and repeated repairs had stopped being a real fix. After talking with contractors and architects, they concluded that patching the structure "would keep us in a cycle of temporary fixes without addressing the bigger issue."

The plan is a multilevel restaurant built for its coastal setting. JD's Rooftop Bar will sit on top, and the Back Porch's live music, dancing and piano nights move upstairs. The new building gets staircases and an elevator. The rooftop will show historic photos and salvaged pieces of the original JD's, with views of the Gulf and the Intracoastal Waterway. The send-off, which ran from Sept. 3 through Sept. 6, invited guests to write memories and messages on one of the restaurant's walls. Ownership plans to keep that section of wall and build it into the new restaurant.

There's no date yet. When the closing was announced, the owners said permits and approvals were still needed before construction could start, and they didn't know how long the rebuild would take. As of the Sept. 15 Tampa Bay Beacons report, no reopening date had been announced. Plan this fall, and probably more than this fall, without it.

The same family runs the next three blocks

The owners said employees will be offered work at sister restaurants during construction, and gift cards, bonus vouchers and other rewards will be honored there too. Those sister spots sit along Gulf Blvd. just south of the closed building, so a familiar bartender or a leftover gift card has a short walk to go.

Going south from 125 Gulf Blvd., the stretch looks like this:

1. VIP Mexican American Cuisine, 213 Gulf Blvd. Open daily, with posted hours. Wednesday service starts at 3 p.m. It's a sister venue, so Monstah Lobstah gift cards apply.
2. Guilty Sea Sports Pub, 301 Gulf Blvd. Also a sister venue and the closest match to what the Back Porch is losing. Its calendar lists Dueling Pianos on Oct. 16. Until JD's Rooftop opens, piano night has moved two blocks down the road.
3. WYNE IRB, 311 Gulf Blvd. Not part of the Loder group, and a quieter kind of evening. This is the old Slyce pizzeria space. Slyce closed that location after hurricane damage and opened WYNE there in June 2025. It's open Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 9 p.m. and closed Sunday and Monday, with wine, small plates and charcuterie boards.
4. The Original Crabby Bill's, 401 Gulf Blvd. The family's flagship, with live performers on the calendar this week, including Sept. 29 through Oct. 1. It also advertises daily live entertainment and a full bar. It reopened after extensive renovations following the 2024 storms.
5. Jake's Coastal Cantina, 500 1st St. A block off Gulf Blvd., open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. It's the sister venue for an earlier evening.

Taken together, the Back Porch's live music now has two homes in the same family, at 301 and 401 Gulf Blvd. The full run from VIP to Crabby Bill's is under three blocks.

Toward the Intracoastal, and farther south on Gulf

The family's venues cover the piano bar and the beach-bar crowd. The other half of the old JD's appeal was the view across to the Intracoastal Waterway, which the rooftop is meant to bring back. Right now, the place for that on the island is Jimmy Guana's at 401 2nd St., a waterfront restaurant with regular daily live entertainment. Performers are listed for Oct. 1, 2 and 3.

Farther south, Coco's Crush Bar & Grill at 2405 Gulf Blvd. has the most predictable schedule on the island: live music Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and trivia every Tuesday at 7 p.m. Happy hour runs Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The kitchen stays open until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and opens at 9 a.m. on weekends for brunch.

Between those two ends of the island are two well-known seafood stops. Neither listed a music calendar in what we reviewed, so they work better for dinner before or after. Keegan's Seafood Grille, 1519 Gulf Blvd., is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. FOX 13 reported that Helene's surge damaged its gas lines and kitchen equipment and kept it closed for about six weeks before it reopened. Guppy's on the Beach, 1701 Gulf Blvd., is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and has an outdoor patio across from the beach.

Here's how that maps against what the Back Porch used to cover:

Schedules come from each venue's own site as of late September 2026 and change often, so check the calendar before you go.

October's biggest night out isn't at a bar

With a beach bar gone from the north end, the largest crowd of the month gathers at Kolb Park on Bay Palm Boulevard, between 15th and 16th Avenues. IRB Action 2000, known around town as A2K, hosts Oktoberfest on Saturday, Oct. 10, from noon to 6 p.m. Bay Palm Blvd. closes for the event and parking is allowed on city streets. A2K says all proceeds go back to the IRB community.

The same park has the rest of the fall calendar:

• IRB Hallowfest, Saturday, Oct. 31, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Kolb Park.
• IRB Library Florida Explorers, a free storytime and nature program from the Friends of the Indian Rocks Beach Library, held at the Civic Auditorium on Bay Palm Blvd. Sessions are Oct. 3 and Nov. 14, 11 a.m. to noon, and registration is required.
• Community Wide Garage Sale, citywide, Nov. 21 and 22, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.

Kolb Park sits roughly between the Loder venues on lower Gulf Blvd. and Keegan's at 1519 Gulf Blvd., so an Oktoberfest afternoon can turn into an evening at either one without moving the car. The city's community events page and our earlier look at how Indian Rocks Beach's summer changed on the street side cover more of what has shifted along Gulf Blvd. since the storms.

What to watch at 125 Gulf Blvd.

The owners said they'll post updates as permits are approved, construction starts, and a reopening timeline becomes clearer. Until then, the closed building is the only thing that has changed. VIP, Guilty Sea and Crabby Bill's are still open in the 200 to 400 blocks of Gulf Blvd., and the piano night now on the calendar is Oct. 16 at 301 Gulf Blvd.

At Kathie Lea Team, we keep track of changes like the rebuild at 125 Gulf Blvd. because they shape daily life on the island. If you'd like to know how the stretch from the old JD's to Crabby Bill's affects homes on this end of Indian Rocks Beach, our Indian Rocks neighborhood page is a good place to start. Start Your Home Search with a team that pays attention to these blocks.