WaterColor Dining: The Resort's Own Restaurants, and What's Actually Next Door

Why WaterColor's Dining Lives Inside the Resort, Not an Independent Row

WaterColor was developed by The St. Joe Company as a deliberate commercial follow-on to Seaside's success, built directly adjacent to it under developer Peter Rummell. But the two communities took different shapes: Seaside was designed around an independent town center, Central Square, with restaurants and a market run as separate businesses. WaterColor's food and beverage venues, by contrast, are almost entirely operated as part of the WaterColor Inn & Resort itself — a AAA Four-Diamond, Forbes-rated property that The St. Joe Company owns and operates directly, not a Marriott Autograph Collection property, despite that affiliation being repeated on some competitor sites.

That matters for anyone trying to plan a meal: there isn't a separate strip of independently owned restaurants inside WaterColor's boundaries the way there is a few hundred yards away in Grayton Beach or Seaside. What's actually there is a small handful of resort-run venues clustered around the Inn itself and the WaterColor Beach Club a short walk or bike ride away.

Fish Out of Water: The Inn's Signature Restaurant

Fish Out of Water sits on the second level of the WaterColor Inn, with its own entrance on the west side of the building in addition to elevator access through the main lobby. It reopened in June 2018 after a full renovation and menu overhaul, redesigned by Cooper Carry (working with The Johnson Studio) into an open-air kitchen and expanded bar, with artwork commissioned from local artist Justin Gaffrey. The kitchen is led by Executive Chef Louis Martorano as Director of Culinary, with Michael Pupillo as Executive Sous Chef, under Director of Restaurants Jeremy Smith; the menu is built around what the restaurant describes as seasonal regional cuisine with a Southern Coastal approach, paired with Gulf views from the dining room.

One operational detail worth knowing before planning around it: Fish Out of Water takes walk-ins only and does not accept reservations for the restaurant itself, which is a genuine point of friction for visitors used to booking ahead at comparable resort restaurants elsewhere on 30A.

WaterColor Beach Club's Two Poolside Venues: WaterColor Grill and Beach Cow

A short distance from the Inn, the WaterColor Beach Club at 24 Goldenrod Circle houses the resort's other two named food venues. WaterColor Grill is the Club's sit-down poolside restaurant, serving fresh seafood, salads, and sandwiches for lunch and dinner (food service roughly 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., with the bar running 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.), overlooking the pool deck and Gulf-facing grounds — a casual-but-upscale menu built around beach-club dining rather than a formal restaurant experience.

Beach Cow is the Club's walk-up counter on the lower pool deck: a window-service stand built around customizable burgers and handcrafted milkshakes, meant for a quick bite between the pool and the beach rather than a sit-down meal. Both venues are part of the Beach Club amenity package rather than free-standing restaurants open to the general public independent of the resort.

The WaterColor Boathouse Is an Event Venue, Not a Walk-In Restaurant

The WaterColor Boathouse, a lakefront building on Western Lake, is worth flagging specifically because it's easy to mistake for a public restaurant given how often it's photographed. It functions as a private event and meetings venue for the resort — weddings, group functions, and similar bookings — not a restaurant you can walk into for dinner. It's a separate thing entirely from an unverified 'boathouse lottery' story about private boathouse access on Western Lake that circulates in 30A folklore; that waitlist story has no corroborating source in news coverage, HOA documents, or permit records, and shouldn't be confused with the Boathouse venue itself, which is a real, bookable resort space.

Getting the Map Right: What's Actually in Grayton Beach and Seaside, Not WaterColor

Because WaterColor sits sandwiched between two of 30A's most famous dining destinations, it's worth being explicit about what's genuinely next door rather than inside WaterColor itself. The Red Bar, one of the corridor's best-known restaurants and live-music bars, sits at 70 Hotz Ave in Grayton Beach — a short walk or drive from WaterColor, but a separate, independently owned business in a separate community, not a WaterColor restaurant. Likewise, Bud & Alley's and Great Southern Cafe, the two long-running sit-down anchors of Seaside's Central Square, are Seaside businesses; Modica Market, Seaside's gourmet grocery, is also Seaside's, not WaterColor's. Any '30A dining guide' that lists these alongside Fish Out of Water as though they're all WaterColor restaurants is blurring three separately developed, independently governed communities together.

What We Verified and What Still Needs a Direct Check

This page covers the restaurants confirmed to be physically located inside WaterColor as of this research (mid-2026): Fish Out of Water at the Inn, and WaterColor Grill and Beach Cow at the Beach Club. The WaterColor Inn & Resort's own dining directory also currently lists additional venues, including Gather Kitchen + Bar and The Canteen, and a Town Center commercial area; we haven't independently verified the specifics of those beyond confirming they appear on the resort's own current site, so we've left them out of the detailed descriptions above rather than guess at cuisine or hours. Restaurant menus, hours, and even which venues are currently operating can change quickly at a resort property — confirm directly with WaterColor Inn & Resort or the WaterColor Community Association before planning a trip around any specific venue.