Now Open: 'Home Plate' Replaces Iris's Grill

Home Plate on the Trail is open for business in time to welcome baseball fans in town for the Toronto Blue Jays' Spring Training season home opener.

Robin Wening hit a home run when Iris's Grill closed in January. New owner Cindy Phillips set out to completely transform and refurbish the Douglas Avenue eatery, right down to its name, and offered the public a chance to come up with its new identity for a $200 prize. Wening, of Palm Harbor, said she saw the contest in a story on Dunedin Patch and drove over to the restaurant to submit her idea. When she hadn't heard anything for a while, she decided to drive by and was shocked to see her "Home Plate" in big black block letters above the trademark roadside sign. She's been a regular customer ever since. "When I stopped in the other day, Cindy, the owner, told one of the customers in there that I'd 'named the joint!'" Wening wrote in an …

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