ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A new restaurant and brewery named Sesh recently opened on property that was home to the Wood Parade Museum in the 1940s, which was one of the first roadside attractions in St. Petersburg.

What You Need To Know

  • It took two years to refurbish the historic 4th Street North property that was most recently home to The Melting Pot until 2020

  • Earl Gresh opened one of St. Pete's first roadside attractions at the site in 1940

  • The Wood Parade Museum closed in 1959

  • Sesh opened on April 5

“We’re very grateful to purchase this property,” said Sesh co-owner Tyson Williams, 44. “A lot of other buyers wanted to demolition it and turn it into another type of business.” 

Williams said the only reason he, along with co-owner Matthew Powers, 41, was able to buy the prime piece of property in April 2021, located at 4th Street and 22nd Avenue North, was because they agreed to refurbish it.

“Because of the historical nature of the property, they (other buyers) weren’t able to make the purchase and do the tear down,” he said. “We were very fortunate we were allowed to make that purchase and others were not.”

It took two years to refurbish the property, which has three buildings that were constructed to look like English cottages, according to Williams. The Wood Parade Museum closed in 1959 and most recently The Melting Pot restaurant occupied the space from 1988 to 2020, according to Preserve the 'Burg.

The main cottage was built by Earl Gresh in the early 1930s, who used a single tree for all the wood panels, according to Powers.

“Earl Gresh was a woodworker (and) built this pretty much by hand,” he said. “You can see the wood paneling all around this room was all cut from the same cypress tree by hand.”

Powers said he discovered a hidden fireplace and chimney in the main building that a former restaurant owner had covered with wood.

“They had a little bar in front of it and it was covered in wood. You couldn’t see what it was,” he said. “Just started prying off the wood and behind the wood is the actual fireplace, and in our research we found that these bricks came from Fort Dade, which is on Egmont Key.”  

Powers laughed about how Gresh did not evenly layer some of those bricks he got from the island that sits at the mouth of Tampa Bay.

“You can tell he did this himself,” he said. “The woodwork is much better than the brickwork.”

The property is also rumored to be home to some ghosts. The co-owners moved an old haunted mirror from a back room into the main dining room, which is rumored to have messages appear on it, according to Williams.

“We moved it over to here so the guests could kind of look and maybe see a little bit of their past, a little bit of their future or something in between,” he said. “Having done two paranormal investigations here, it might be some of the spirits that are inhabiting this place, not just behind the bar.”

Sesh is going with the haunted theme and offers “The Evil Eye” drink that comes with a floating eyeball made from lychee and stuffed with a Luxardo cherry. Inside the carrier cottage is the Sesh brewery, which provides beer for 14 taps with sangria and seltzer flowing from another six taps.

“We’ve got a state-of-the-art alpha brewing system up here,” said Powers. “A seven barrel brewing system, 31 gallons a barrel.”

Williams and Powers also own Mad Beach Craft Brewing Company in Madeira Beach. They named their new restaurant, which opened on April 5, after a modern phrase.

“There’s a pop culture phrase called a ‘sesh’ or having a session,” said Williams. “It just means hanging out with a group of friends and family imbibing.”

The owners hope the historic building will attract customers for another 80 years to come.